The internet company Yahoo! has come under attack from an international press watchdog for supplying information to the Chinese Government that directly led to a journalist being jailed for ten years.

Shi Tao, a journalist from Hunan province, was jailed in April for "illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities". He was accused of having e-mailed a pro-democracy activist in New York details of a government order barring Chinese media from marking the 15th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders has published a translation of the court's verdict which showed that Yahoo!'s Hong Kong subsidiary had provided Chinese investigators with the detailed technical information that allowed them to prove that only Shi could have sent the e-mail in question.

"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," the organisation said.

Although Reporters Without Borders said that Yahoo! had obviously complied with requests from the Chinese authorities, it suggested that the California-based internet group should still retain some ethical considerations.

It added: "Information supplied by Yahoo! led to the conviction of a good journalist who has paid dearly for trying to get the news out. It is one thing to turn a blind eye to the Chinese Government’s abuses and it is quite another thing to collaborate."

According to the court document, Shi, 37, was head of the editorial department at the Hunan Contemporary Business News when he was called into a meeting of senior editorial staff on April 20, 2004, to be told of a "top secret" document issued by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

Although staff were told not to take any written notes about the order, Shi did so and later, while working the night shift, logged onto the internet and used his personal e-mail address - huoyan-1989@yahoo.com.cn - to Hong Zhesheng, who is described as one of the founders of the Asia Democracy Forum in New York. Mr Hong ensured that the text of the document was widely disseminated online.

The document said that Shi did not dispute the facts presented to the court but argued in his defence: "My criminal act did not involve particularly serious circumstances." That argument was rejected by the court.

The court said that it had, however, accepted a plea from Shi's lawyer, Tong Wenzbong, that his client's punishment be lenient because he had admitted his crime and his actions had "not caused especially serious damage to state security or interests".

A spokeswoman at Yahoo!’s Hong Kong office told Agence France-Presse the company did not have an immediate comment. "We’re looking into this matter," she said.

Yahoo!, along with Google and Microsoft, have been accused of putting business ahead of integrity by succumbing to China’s pressure and censoring sensitive information on its Chinese search engines, websites and weblogs.

The three portals are battling for a share of China’s fast growing internet market, which is growing at almost 20 per cent a year and is already the world's second largest after the United States.

Last month, Yahoo! agreed to buy 40 per cent of China’s Alibaba.com for $1 billion, the biggest investment by a foreign company in China’s internet sector. In 2002, Yahoo! voluntarily signed the "Public Pledge on Self-Discipline for the China Internet Industry," agreeing to abide by Chinese censorship regulations.

Searches deemed sensitive by the Chinese Government, such as the 1989 Tiananmen massacre and the outlawed spiritual group Falun Gong throw up no results in the Yahoo! China search engine,

Reporters Without Borders said: "The company will yet again simply state that they just conform to the laws of the countries in which they operate. But does the fact that this corporation operates under Chinese law free it from all ethical considerations? How far will it go to please Beijing?"

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