Yahoo faces up to crunch court decision

The legal action between Yahoo and the Paris-based League Against anti-Semitism and Racism (Licra) moves closer to a conclusion next month when a US court decides whether or not to protect Yahoo from a French court's decision.

Last year, a Paris tribunal under Judge Gomez found that Yahooviolated French law by offering Nazi material on its auction website, and later Yahoo's appeal that it was technically impossible for the portal to block French citizens from accessing its servers.

In November, Judge Gomez gave the portal three months to introduce a filtering system and threatened to impose a fine of up to 100,000 French francs (£9740) for every day the portal failed to do so after that deadline, which ran out over the weekend.

Yahoo banned Nazi and similar material from all of its commercial communities at the start of the year. In fact, Yahoo has never sold such material on its French website, which is actually hosted in Santa Clara, California.

The portal has said that it would continue with an action filed on 12 December in California which argued that the French court has no jurisdiction in the case. That hearing is now believed to be scheduled for next month.

Earlier this week, a French court rejected a claim by Licra that Yahoo could not make such an appeal to a US court.

Licra has also requested Judge Gomez to rule that, as it is a not-for-profit organisation, Yahoo should pick up its costs. Licra must now appeal to the French court to enforce its option of fining Yahoo the stipulated 100,000 French francs a day.

According to a report on law.com, the case is seen as a landmark decision as a number of states and countries from Texas to China have passed relevant laws. The Yahoo case is the first time a government has attempted to enforce its laws against a company from outside its territory.