Yahoo makes a BAD move
  06/12/2001 3:23:33 AM MDT Albuquerque, Nm
  By Dustin D. Brand; Owner AMO

The French government doesn't like what Yahoo has done, and now Yahoo is seeking US help.   In a move that will go down as one of the worst things an American company has ever done, Yahoo is fighting the French government over Nazi items for sale.

  FRENCH LAW will now have a hearing in U.S. courts after a federal judge refused last week to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Yahoo challenging a French high-court order requiring the Internet portal to bar Nazi paraphernalia and other hate-related material from its U.S.-based Web sites.

  The French order mandated that Yahoo install filters to block users in France from accessing Yahoo's auction sites located on U.S. servers. Although Yahoo began to bar hate material from its auction sites in January and has since targeted hate sites put online by patrons of its GeoCities subsidiary, those moves do not comply with the French order, said a company spokesman earlier this year. Yahoo faces fines of $13,000 a day in France for failing to uphold the order.

  Now instead of doing something that is technically extremely easy to do, that is filter out the bad Nazi content, Yahoo decided to claim that the French don't have any right to restrict what a US company does - even if it affects their country and their laws like the internet does. I have to say that Yahoo, you just made a BAD move.

  Santa Clara, Calif.-based Yahoo brought suit in the U.S. District Court of Northern California in San Jose, seeking a declaratory judgment to determine whether a French court has jurisdiction to regulate commerce Yahoo says is local to the United States.

  This case reaches much further than hate speech, and actually reaches into fundamental rights of countries worldwide and the extent of the governance of the internet in their territory. The French have the right, and Yahoo doesn't, it's really very simple.

  U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel ruled Thursday that he will not throw out the case, paving the way for either a summary judgment in favor of Yahoo or a full hearing to determine jurisdiction, a clerk at his office said.

  I'll be following this case very closely and will keep you attuned.