Thursday, December 29, 2005

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- Police have arrested a former computer programmer for allegedly publishing a fabricated news article on a fake Yahoo Japan news Web site saying that China had invaded the Japanese island of Okinawa.Tokyo Metropolitan Police department arrested Takahiro Yamamoto, 30, Monday on suspicion of violating patent laws, a police spokesman said on condition of anonymity, citing departmental policy.He said Yamamoto allegedly accredited the fake article to Kyodo News Agency and published it on an Internet site that he had designed to look like Yahoo! Japan Corp's news site.The story was written in Japanese with a dateline "America, Oct. 18 Kyodo" followed by a headline saying "Chinese Military invades Okinawa," the police said.Police had confiscated Yamamoto's personal computer and analyzed the data stored in it.Kyodo said it and Yahoo had filed complaints to police in October.The Web site was accessed 66,000 times until it was taken down on October 19, Kyodo said, quoting police.Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo is one of the world's largest Internet portal operators, with some 345 million people using its mix of search engines, news sites and online shopping.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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