The hearing has been launched after 6 Jewish groups filed a
lawsuit demanding that access to the web portal front14.org be
banned. The portal contains links to over 300 web sites containing
racist material, illegal under French law. The front14 portal is
run by a US company called SkyNetWEB which has no French presence,
unlike Yahoo! Accordingly, if SkyNetWEB were successfully sued in
France, it would be difficult for the court to enforce the
judgment.
Instead, the French groups are seeking an order from the French
court that 13 French ISPs, including Wanadoo, Noos, Freesurf and
AOL France, should block access to the Front14.org portal and the
sites it hosts.
A ruling is expected later this year from Judge Jean-Jacquez
Gomez.
Yahoo! is challenging Gomez’s ruling against it in the US
courts, although it has removed the auction sites which triggered
the original lawsuit. Yahoo! argues that a French court has no
jurisdiction to control its US web site. A date has still to be set
for the hearing of the case.
