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EBay and Yahoo! claim – but fail – to block Nazi auctions


According to a report by Newsbytes, auction site eBay has said that it will comply with a request from the German Government to block Nazi memorabilia from its US-based web site. However, the ban does not appear to be entirely effective.

Newsbytes attempted to search for Nazi-related items. It found that the eBay search engine produced results including German army uniforms from World War 2. However, the news service noted that clicking on the items produced a message to the user which explained that access to the item was being blocked on legal grounds. However, a subsequent search by OUT-LAW.COM gave access to Nazi daggers, coins and stamps, featuring active bids.

According to Newsbytes, the German Ministry of Justice recently asked eBay to cease offering items related to the Nazi era, the display for sale of such items being contrary to German law. It is the second request of its kind following the apparent failure by eBay to meet an undertaking given last year that it would not host the sale of such items.

Yahoo! recently said it would block such items as a matter of policy. In announcing the move, the company tried to distance itself from a French court ruling which demanded that it block access by French nationals to such sales since the sales were in breach of French law. Again, Yahoo!'s technical measures appear to be unsuccessful. A search today revealed active bids on several auctions of coins imprinted with an image of the Swastika and stamps bearing the image of Adolf Hitler.

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