It is understood that no Nazi memorabilia was available on Yahoo!’s French site, yahoo.fr, but it is available at yahoo.com.
It is illegal in France to sell or display anything that incites racism. The International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (known as LICRA) and the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF) brought the action seeking a court order to make all such auctions inaccessible to internet users in France and its territories.
Judge Jean-Jaques Gomez ordered Yahoo! to pay legal costs to each of LICRA and UEJF and gave it two months to block the site from Internet users in France. To comply, it is likely that Yahoo!’s only option will be to remove the site entirely.
This is the first time a French court has issued such an order on a foreign internet company. A Yahoo! spokesman said: “The real question is whether a French jurisdiction can make a decision on the English content of an American site run by an American company for the sole reason that French users have access via the internet.”