The Download: carbon removal concerns, and Yahoo’s China controversy

The carbon removal industry is just starting to take off, but some experts are warning that it’s already headed in the wrong direction. 

Two former staffers of the US agency responsible for advancing the technology argue that the profit-driven industry’s focus on cleaning up corporate emissions will come at the expense of helping to pull the planet back from dangerous levels of warming.

They warn that carbon dioxide removal isn’t a product that any person or company “needs,” in the traditional market sense. Rather, it provides a collective societal good, in the way that waste management does, only with larger global stakes. Read the full story.

—James Temple

Yahoo’s decades-long China controversy and the responsibility of tech companies

Back in the early 2000s, Yahoo was operating a popular search engine and email service in China, and it was one of the first tech companies to be found sharing user information with the Chinese government, leading to the imprisonment of a number of Chinese citizens.

The ensuing attention and subsequent lawsuit against Yahoo from the families of two political prisoners landed a big blow against the company. But the consequences of the company’s actions are still very much felt today—and we’re still learning about how Yahoo failed to help the very cyber dissidents it was supposed to be protecting. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

This story is from China Report, our weekly newsletter following technology in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.