On Monday, Yahoo! began its challenge in a Californian court
against an order imposed by a French court which required it to
block access by French nationals to certain auctions hosted on a
US-based Yahoo! site selling Nazi memorabilia.
Lawyers for the portal argued that the US constitutional right
to freedom of speech protects it against the French ruling which,
in any event, required technologically impossible changes to its
web servers.
The anti-racism groups which brought the original action in
France against Yahoo! argued that the US case should be postponed
to allow for investigation of Yahoo!’s claim that closing access to
French users was impossible.
However, US District Judge Jeremy Fogel observed: “even if
discovery showed that Yahoo! could easily shut access just to
French viewers, would that still not be a burden on speech, a
chilling of speech under the First Amendment?”
The case is continuing.
