NEWS STORY: Paris Judge Gives Yahoo Three Months to Block Nazi Items on Auction Site

c. 2000 Religion News Service PARIS _ In a victory for French anti-racist groups, a Paris judge has given American Internet company Yahoo three months to block all French access to Nazi-related items on its auction page or face a $13,000-a-day fine. The Monday (Nov. 20) decision by Judge Jean Jacques Gomez appeared to close […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

PARIS _ In a victory for French anti-racist groups, a Paris judge has given American Internet company Yahoo three months to block all French access to Nazi-related items on its auction page or face a $13,000-a-day fine.

The Monday (Nov. 20) decision by Judge Jean Jacques Gomez appeared to close _ for the moment at least _ a precedent-setting court case that has launched a fierce debate over the limits of national law and free speech within the free-wheeling world of the Web.


“It’s the first fight we’ve won, but there will be others, believe me,” said Marc Knobel, a member of the Paris-based International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, known by its French acronym, LICRA, following the ruling. “And we won’t let either racism or anti-Semitism pass on the Net.”

In April, the anti-Semitism group paired with France’s Union of Jewish Students to file a court case against Yahoo Inc. for violating French law, which forbids the sale and display of racist or anti-Semitic items.

At issue: more than 1,000 neo-Nazi items for sale on the American company’s auction site.

In May, Judge Gomez agreed with the plaintiffs that Yahoo had indeed broken French law and offended painful memories of World War II, when Jews were deported to concentration camps and France’s Vichy government collaborated with Nazi Germany.

“Racial hatred may be a crime in France, but it’s a bad thing everywhere,” said Laurent Levy, lawyer for another anti-racist group, MRAP, which later joined in the lawsuit against Yahoo. “The question is, can one fuel racial hatred from abroad? And the answer today is: No.”

The November ruling gives Yahoo three months to comply with screening measures set by a court-appointed panel.

The experts say the measures _ which include screening Internet users for their name, nationality and place of residence _ will be 90 percent effective in blocking French access to the American auction site. Yahoo France has already blocked off the access.


But Yahoo lawyer Christophe Pecnard indicated the company might appeal the decision.

“We are going to examine all the possibilities now, and obviously appealing this decision is one possibility,” he said.

From the beginning, the American company has argued it should not be subject to the laws of another country. Moreover, it said, the French anti-Semitism law violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protection of free speech.

A French Senate judicial committee earlier commended Yahoo for removing hate messages from the Net. The Internet company has also removed pornographic and other offensive material from its site, lawyer Pecnard said. But the company did so of its own accord, he said, rather than being forced to under law.

“The fact that a French judge has put an injunction on Yahoo Inc. is a first, and will have consequences for all international companies all over the world,” Pecnard said.

Indeed, the French case has stirred profound concern among Internet firms and free speech advocates, who argue it may set a disturbing precedent for authoritarian countries to follow.

“The issue is not one of rather naively defending big groups,” said Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, in a statement. “But it would be a great pity if, in the name of a just cause … we provide arguments, weapons and a justification for repressive regimes that, from China to Tunisia or Burma, want above all to bar their people from access to any authorized information.”


But Knobel, of LICRA, said questions of hatred went beyond free speech protections.

“What would have been worse today is keeping things the way they are,” said Knobel, whose father was forced to wear a yellow star identifying him as a Jew during World War II. “So that everyone shuts up, and that it seems normal that one sells objects of crime against humanity. And that it seems normal that Nazi objects develop and multiply on the Internet.”

DEA END BRYANT

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