huridocs-tech Please boycott Yahoo!'s abuse made in the name of free speech

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## author     : clabadie@t-online.de
## date       : 08.06.00
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Please read this. Given its importance it seems fit to
reproduce this message under fair use to any list it may
concerns. Christian

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Le Monde May 24, 2000 (appeared in TheGuardianWeekly, Vol.
162, No23, p. 31,
mailto:gwsubs@guardian.co.uk?subject=GW-subscribe)

French court rules against 'offensive' Web auction by
Philippe Broussart and Enguérand Renault

On May 22 a Paris court ordered the giant American internet
service provider Yahoo! To take steps to "make it
impossible" for French surfers to gain access to its auction
site, which sells, among other things, Nazi memorabilia.

The ruling was made as a result of action taken by the
International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism
(Licra) and the Union of Jewish Students of France (UEJF).
In the course of a hearing on May 15 the two groups
expressed anger at the fact that SS flags, Nazi insignia and
uniforms, and even canisters of Zyklon B gas (used in the
death camps) were being offered for sale.

Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez gave Yahoo! until July 24th to come
up with technical proposals that would block access to the
site. The court ruled that the sale of such objects
"offended the country's collective memory", and that "by
allowing the visualisation of the site in France, Yahoo! was
committing an offence on French territory, even if it was
unintentional".

This is the first time a French court has imposed a
constraint on any major company forming part of the "new
economy".

During the hearing, Christophe Pecnard, representing Yahoo!,
stressed that the on-line auction service did not more than
put buyers and sellers in contact with each other, without
selecting objects.

He also reminded the court that such auctions were permitted
by the United States constitution in the name of freedom of
expression. His arguments were rejected by the French court,
which ruled that it had the jurisdiction to judge the case.

In a communiqué put out on May 22, Yahoo! said that it had
acted in good faith, supported the cause of the Licra and
the UEJF, and shared "the emotion" aroused by the case.

Yahoo!, set up in 1994, was originally a straightforward
internet search engine. But under the guidance of the
finance company Softbank and its president, Tim Koogle, it
quickly became a general provider offering such services as
e-mail, calendars, news, finance, auctions and shopping.

"The court's ruling has done the internet a service", says
Licra's counsel, Marc Levy. "If the internet becomes an area
that is outside the law, it will be polluted by all sorts of
delinquency. It is a medium that has no frontiers, but which
must respect the laws of each country".

The UEJF's counsel, Stéphane Lilti, told Le Monde that he
denounced Yahoo!'s "worldwide decision" not "to take a
stance on the content" of sites.

Pecnard said: "The real question the court had to answer was
whether a French court could rule on the English-language
content of an American site, run by an American company and
subject to American law purely on the grounds that French
users had access to it." He felt the ruling marked "an
important precedent".





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