Should you boycott Yahoo?

The CEO of Web hosting site Freewebs says over the company's cooperation with the Chinese government, which has helped put several antigovernment bloggers in jail. Shervin Pishevar asked Yahoo CEO Terry Semel this week whether he would have "cooperated with Nazi Germany." Semel, speaking at the Wall Street Journal's D Conference, did not answer with the wise, obvious, and politically expedient no. Instead, he replied that Yahoo's obligation is not to take a point of view on presenting content and said, "I don't know how I would have felt then." Oof. Now, Pishevar tells Valleywag, "Americans should boycott Yahoo products until they get the message that freedom is an American ideal, and we're not going to give it up." That silence you hear is the sound of Google, Microsoft, and of course, the United States itself hiding in the closet and hoping no one notices them.