New Turn In Yahoo Tussle Over Nazi Items
Yahoo's face-off with France over Nazi paraphernalia took its latest twist Monday, with a federal appeals court reversing an earlier decision that found that the First Amendment protected the Web portal from legal action over the issue in the United States.
Source: c|netThe ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is part of a four-year-old case brought on by anti-hate-speech groups in France over the sale of Nazi paraphernalia on Yahoo. In 2000, a French judge ordered Yahoo to block on its Web servers all sales of Nazi items to the country's citizens, citing France's law prohibiting the sale or exhibition of objects associated with racism. The Web portal claimed that the French courts had no authority over material hosted by its servers in the United States and then took legal action to prove its point. The company filed a pre-emptive suit with the District Court in Santa Clara, Calif., in 2000. In November 2001, the court agreed with Yahoo, ruling that the French court could not enforce its block order in the United States. The court went further, claiming that the case would also violate the Web portal's First Amendment rights.
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