NOTE: This post has been following a continuing saga taking place between ZDNet and Yahoo! over the alleged release of 200,000 Iranian accounts to the Iranian government. ZDNet has retracted the story in full, and it does look to be false.

ZDNet editor Larry Dignan wrote:

“First, the post was based on a single source who had a clear agenda. That source wasn’t properly filtered and his charges weren’t verifiable by credible sources.

Second, we never called Yahoo to verify the report or get an appropriate response. Blog networks still need to follow journalism 101 and Yahoo should have been called. In summary, our checks and balances went awry. We put a lot of trust in our bloggers to get it right and frankly we let you down with this report.”

It happens in some of the world’s biggest news rooms, and websites are at risk of doing it just as the New York Times or Washington Post could be. Bad information makes its way into the light of publication. In this case, it was a post by ZDnet’s Richard Koman, which accused Yahoo! of providing the Iranian government the account details of nearly 200,ooo users in order to convince the regime to unblock its service. Yahoo! strongly denied the accusation. It’s run into reputation problems over similar accusations involving Chinese human rights activists in the past. But in the culture wars of the United States not all repression is equal. People quickly get over news about a few Chinese human rights activists being sold out. Iran is full of Muslims, and the women there where the hijab, a symbol it seems we’re culturally instructed to revile as opposed to understand. When news of the company allegedly

Iran does have more than its fair share of internal problems, though, and no small number of people paying high prices in their attempts to improve their country. People are being thrown in prison, killed, tortured. Newspapers are being shut down and voices online and in traditional media are being silenced.

This is what makes this story all the worse. The problem is, is that the government is trying to listen in and identify activists. They’ve even set up a website in an attempt to crowd source it, or at least intimidate the people whose photographs are on it. In this atmosphere, telling people something is potentially unsafe to use can be a matter of life or death.

People are in dire need of safe, secure outlets to communicate. Yahoo! may be acting out of concern over its brand identity, but the real damage is far more important than that. It’s the ability for possibly vital information to be exchanged internally and with the outside world. This rumor put that at risk.

As of this writing, we at best have to say that the information is unclear. It’s difficult to simply say all those Iranian yahoo! accounts have not been compromised, as the explanation says that the story was not well-sourced, not that they have actually caught the source lying. We would say that it looks like the story is false, though.

Previously:

Yahoo! denies meeting or deal took place

How many of these people have Yahoo! accounts that the Iranian government can now access?

Yahoo! users in Iran should consider deleting their accounts in light of a shocking exclusive report by Richard Koman, who covers the intersection of law, government and technology for ZDNet.

UPDATE: Yahoo!’s response and our remarks about it can be found on the jump.

On October 8 Koman wrote: “Yahoo collaborated with the Iranian regime during the election protests, providing to the authorities the names and emails of some 200,000 Iranian Yahoo users. This is according to a post on the Iranian Students Solidarity (Farsi) blog. My sources indicate the information comes from a group of resisters who have infiltrated the administration and are leaking out important information.”

The Iranian government shut access to Google and Yahoo as protests following the flawed Iranian elections begain to reach fever pitch. Google correctly ignored the government’s move. Yahoo! apparently took a different route, Koman writes. Company representatives agreed to provide the names of Yahoo subscribers who also have blogs in exchange for the government lifting the blocks on Yahoo.

The post said the Iranian government was particularly interested in the accounts of bloggers, which Yahoo! found easier to give up than an entire list of all 20 million users.

The Committee recommends that anyone involved in political activism involving Iran consider how closely their Yahoo! ID is related to their actual identity and possibly delete their accounts now. Furthermore, Anyone involved in any political reform in a country where harrassment, torture, imprisonment and death may want to think twice about using Yahoo! if it turns that this is how loose the company plays with your details.

READ: Exclusive! Yahoo provided Iran with names of 200,000 users | ZDNet Government | ZDNet.com.

A translation of the original post  from the Iranian Students Solidarity (Farsi) blog follows:

On 27th of Shahrivar (Day of Qods) when Iranians demonstrated again on the streets, the Iranian authorities in addition to blocking many internet sites, all over Iran, blocked or severely limited access to Yahoo and Google. Google did not react and its problem was resolved with 48 hours, but Yahoo sent a representative to Iran’s telecommunications ministry, to resolve the issue.

During the meeting with Iranian Internet authorities and telecommunications authorities, Yahoo representatives were asked to provide Iranian authorities with the names (data) on all Iranian Internet account holders in exchange for removing the block/filter on the Yahoo website.

The Yahoo representative subsequently expressed that currently there were more than 20 million email accounts and providing such a list will be a very time-consuming process. To which the IRGC (Islamic Republic Guardian Council) replied by asking the representative to provide email accounts of those individuals who have Yahoo accounts and are publishing blogs.

Apparently this made Yahoo’s task a bit easier and the Yahoo representative agreed to provide such a list within a matter of hours. Upon the receipt of such a list, which included approximately 200,000 emails, by the Iranian authorities, the regime immediately unblocked access to the Yahoo.com website. The list went back as far as five years and included active and inactive accounts and blogs.

It is necessary to mention here that the Iranian Yahoo is managed by Yahoo Corporation in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur).

Yahoo’s response: “The allegations in the story are false. Neither Yahoo! nor any Yahoo! representative has met with or communicated with any Iranian officials, and Yahoo! has not disclosed user data to the Iranian government. Yahoo! was founded on the principle that access to information and communications tools can improve people’s lives, and Yahoo! is committed to protecting and promoting freedom of expression and privacy. To learn more about our human rights efforts, please visit: http://humanrights.yahoo.com.”

The Committee believes that the truth will shake out sooner or later, but while we may be cautious of the allegations, we should also be mindful that the defense is not without an agenda. Yahoo! has not been an entirely clean player in all parts of the world. While we cannot judge based only on past actions, they do help inform us about general tendencies and patterns. Here we include BoingBoing’s list of Yahoo! coverage, much of it having to do with the internet portal business’ dealings in China.