Duncan Riley reports that Alibaba has had the typical — or perhaps, more than typical — run up of a hotly expected internet IPO, with its stock price shooting up around 160% of its initial offering.

The big obvious winner is Yahoo, who controls a controlling 40% stake in the parent group of this Chinese enterprise-level e-commerce/trade website, and has made, on paper, over a $1B in the first day alone.

While its a day of financial windfalls for Yahoo in China, its also a day, ironically, that will find its CEO, Jerry Yang, in the Congressional hotseat to answer questions *about* how Yahoo deals with China — specifically, how it gave confidential information to Chinese government officials about a local dissident, leading to that individual to serving 10 or more years in jail.

The financial windfall will score, undoubtedly, the incredible opportunity in China for any net companies; and yet, I think its all the more important that any new media watcher to follow what is said in these Congressional hearings.  BusinessWeek has the details, but the fallout from Yahoo’s shennanigans (if the release of information leading someone to end up in jail can be glibly called a “shennanigan”) may be some interesting US legislation which follows that may make it illegal *in* the US to divulge such private information, which may include phone numbers and social security numbers, to any third party (governments included).

I don’t know how the lobbyists will deal with that kind of impending fight, but should it pass — as BusinessWeek rightly points out — it may make it all but impossible for US based companies to do work in China; even Yahoo, who has a controlling interest in Alibaba (according to the BusinessWeek article), has these issues to contend with as the local CEO has publicly proclaimed that he’ll work with the Chinese government with whatever it needs to do.