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Policing the web August
2000
French authorities order Yahoo! to prevent users
from accessing online auctions of Nazi memorabilia
Yahoo! could face fines of £100,000 per day
if it does not prevent users in France from accessing auctions of
Nazi memorabilia. It was given until the 24th of July to 'dissuade
and make it impossible' for French users to access its online auctions;
while its subsidiary Yahoo! France had complied with this ruling,
the parent company had refused both to block the site or to provide
warnings. The case was brought by the Union of Jewish Students and
the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism.
If an ensuing court case goes against Yahoo! it
will contradict some recent rulings which appear to have provided
relief to Internet Service Providers. In May this year, the US Supreme
Court ruled in Lunney vs. Prodigy that ISPs have full protection
against libellous or abusive email postings over the web, after
a former boy scout served Prodigy after an imposter sent threatening
messages in his name. (This case didn't deal with newsgroup postings,
however, as in the Goddfrey vs. Demon case.) Likewise, a
court in Munich overturned the conviction of a former head of CompuServe,
fined £33,000 and given a two-year suspended sentence in 1998,
for aiding and abetting the spread of child pornography.
Not that these are the only rulings that have recently
affected how the Internet is to be policed. In March, the UK ISP
Demon settled out of court with Dr Laurence Goddfrey because of
allegedly libellous postings against him, and within two days a
gay site, Outcast, and the Campaing Against Censorship site
had been closed down for fear of claims against libel. NetBenefit,
the ISP for Outcast, removed the site after receiving legal letters
from a rival publication, The Pink Paper, and Chris Morris,
editor of Outcast plans to take the case to the European
Court of Human Rights. (Read more about the Goddfrey case here.)
In Munich again, a court held AOL responsible for distribution of
pirated music, rejecting the company's defence that it was a common
carrier like the Royal Mail or Deutsche Post.
Should the case against Yahoo! be upheld, the implication
is that material not aimed at a particular population in another
country will be subject to that country's laws because of its availability,
meaning that online groups will have to work out their liability
worldwide. This is indeed the case for other media, but is complicated
by the way that the Internet has operated as an international medium
since the early nineties. Yahoo! has argued that it is incapable
of blocking such transactions because they may come from a proxy
address, but it remains illegal to sell goods inciting violence
of racist sentiments in France, and those bringing the action are
concerned that such sales simply break French law when they can
be accessed in France.
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