Yahoo knew about the attacks and didn’t want people to know they had been a target? Why not? It’s not like they had hemorrhoids or anything and needed some hemorrhoid creams to cure themselves. It was a public attack by a foreign government, people should have been told.

Yahoo Inc knew it had been a target to sophisticated Chinese cyber attacks on U.S. corporations before Google alerted the company to them, a source familiar with the matter said, but chose to remain silent after its bigger rival went public.

The two Internet search and email providers had discussed a highly coordinated attack originating in China prior to Google’s high-profile announcement on Tuesday, the person said.

Google said the hackers’ primary goal was to access Gmail accounts of human rights activists, and that at least 20 other large companies had been targeted. It was unclear whether the attacks on Yahoo were also aimed at grabbing information off emails, or if they had been successful.