Yahoo Struggles with French Law (For reader convenience, the latest updates are at the top.)

Update January 10, 2001

Yahoo! is stilling battling against the French courts but this time on U.S. soil. Yahoo! has brought a suit in a California court claiming that a French court cannot enforce French laws against a U.S. company. Although Yahoo! is still fighting this battle it has decided to prohibit the sale of hate items on its auction sites.

Additionally, Yahoo is going to charge those users who wish to put items up for auction on its site. The fee will be minimal - between 20 cents and $2.25. Both the fee and the ban on hate related items will go into effect as of January 10, 2001.

Update December 1, 2000

Late on November 20, 2000 the French trial court handed down its final verdict. Yahoo has been ordered to impliment filtering technologies suggested by the panel of experts to keep French citizens from accessing sales of Nazi memorabilia on its sites, including those located on servers located in the U.S. The technologies required include blocking of keywords, IP address filtering, and geopgraphical location identification. The expert panel conceded that these techniques would not prevent all access, but the court found perfection not to be required. The case has tremendous implications for e-commerce as it is one of the first decisions by one country's court ordering actions beyond its national borders. Yahoo is considering an appeal.

Update November 14, 2000

As last reported Yahoo was given 3 months with which to determine if it was technologically possible to restrict access to French citizens in the Nazi memorabilia auctions. Experts have now come back to the French court and informed the judge that it is possible to filter between 70-80% of French citizens from the Yahoo auction sites and still access other Yahoo sites that are not prohibited by French laws.

No final verdict has been handed down at this point, but one is expected later this month when the court will determine whether or not Yahoo will have to implement this partial filter or take other action.

August 22, 2000 Original Posting

A lawsuit between Yahoo and two Paris based organizations has been put on hold as Yahoo is given three months to develop a system to block French citizens from purchasing Nazi memorabilia. The question that comes into play is whether or not a country can require that its laws be implemented on the Internet. In this instance, the relevant French legislation (and similar policies of other European countries) have determined that the sale and display of racially explicit material will not be permitted. Yahoo France has implemented blocks so as to prohibit the sale of such merchandise; however, it is fairly easy for any French citizen to access and purchase the prohibited merchandise on the U.S. based Yahoo, where no such restrictions are imposed. Yahoo has been ordered by the French courts to define a way to impose their legislative restrictions on all Yahoo portals - wherever located. This comes down to questions of the extent to which a country can effectively impose its laws on the Internet beyond its borders, and whether or not the Internet has technology capable of controlling an international diversity of views and cultures.