Yahoo! investigated in Germany over on-line auction

German prosecutors are investigating Yahoo! over the suspected illegal auction of copies of Hitler's manifesto "Mein Kampf." The announcement follows the recent decision against Yahoo! by a French court, ordering the portal to ban access by French nationals to certain on-line auctions selling Nazi memorabilia.29 Nov 2000

The case differs from the French dispute because the allegations concern only Yahoo!'s German web site, Yahoo! Deutschland, not yahoo.com, the site at the centre of the French case.

As in France, the sale of Nazi memorabilia is illegal in Germany. According to the senior prosecutor for the state court in Munich, unnamed senior Yahoo! officials are under investigation for the auctions taking place on Yahoo!'s German site on 1st February and 19th April this year.

A Yahoo! spokeswoman said that as soon as the company gets information that illegal products are included in an auction on its German site, it removes them.