Apparently joining the ranks of ignoble foreign companies in China scurrying to please its despotic government with some dastardly deeds of their own for the sake of safeguarding their business interests in what is set to become the world's largest internet market, Yahoo has been accused of snitching on a journalist for "divulging state secrets" and helping to land him in a Chinese prison, reports the BBC.

"We already knew that Yahoo collaborates enthusiastically with the Chinese regime in questions of censorship, and now we know it is a Chinese police informant as well," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement. It said Yahoo's Hong Kong branch helped China link a journalist's email account and computer to a message containing the text of an internal Communist Party message.

Yahoo declined to confirm or deny that it had furnished the Chinese government with the information, according to Reuters.

"Just like any other global company, Yahoo must ensure that its local country sites must operate within the laws, regulations and customs of the country in which they are based," Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako said in a statement emailed to Reuters by the firm's Hong Kong branch.

The jailed journalist, Shi Tao, worked for the Contemporary Business News in Hunan province. He was sentenced in April to 10 years in prison for sending the information to foreign websites. The message apparently warned of the potential social unrest resulting from the return of dissidents on the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, in June 2004.