A French judge has ruled that Yahoo has broken French law by allowing the auction of neo-Nazi objects on its web portal.
vnunet.com, 23 May 2000
A French judge has ruled that Yahoo has broken French law by allowing the auction of neo-Nazi objects on its web portal.
Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez said the ISP has committed "an offence to the collective memory" of the country, and ordered Yahoo to pay $1390 each to the Union of Jewish Students and the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, which brought the case against the service provider.
Judge Gomez gave Yahoo two months to make the site inaccessible to internet users in France, and both sides were told to return to court on 24 July.
The Union of Jewish Students and the International League Against Racism and anti-Semitism asked the court to shut down Yahoo's auctions site and to impose a fine for each day it did not comply with French law, which prohibits the sale or display of anything that incites racism.
Nazi-related objects cannot be bought on Yahoo's French portal, but they are openly sold on the US site.
The legal action between Yahoo and the Paris-based League Against anti-Semitism and Racism moves closer to a conclusion next month when a US court decides whether or not to protect Yahoo from a French court's decision.
European ISPs want the European Union to step in over a French court's decision that Yahoo must stop French web surfers from accessing its US auction pages.
A French court's ruling against Yahoo has stunned the ebusiness community.
A German regional government leader has added weight to French calls for US internet firms to block access to Nazi propaganda on their web servers.
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