U.S. Judge To Hear Yahoo! Web-Blocking Case 280
BlueTurnip writes: "In this story, CNN reports that a U.S. federal judge has agreed to hear a case involving foreign courts to rule against U.S. companies doing business in the U.S. A while back, a French court ruled that Yahoo! must remove Nazi-related materials from its online auction sites. Yahoo! removed the items from its French web site, but left the items available on its U.S. site. A French judge ruled that wasn't good enough, and Yahoo! was forced to remove the offending materials from its American site as well. Now, a U.S. federal judge has agreed to hear the case and decide on foreign jurisdiction over U.S. companies." Yahoo! already decided to block many types of auctions, but at issue is here is who gets to decide what a web site may carry.
The world is not free. (Score:5)
Yahoo should not be forced to remove their content on American soil. Period. If this was to go through, and be ruled that this is a perfectly legit thing for other countries to force on us, then pretty soon, we will be answering to more of this behavior. The free speech of the United States WILL be scrutinized (such as in the parody cases). It's a pretty low blow to use something as Nazi memorabilla against us. We are witnessing the end of the "freedom" the internet provides. Sure it may take some years, but its coming.
my favorite line in the article: (Score:2)
- A.P.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
Hmm (Score:2)
Re:Please let Yahoo win (Score:2)
If this was, say, America_Only_Auctions.com, which has no physical presence outside of the US, I would figure that the French court could have very little say in affecting how that site operated, and much less so, the company having gotten to the point of having to defend its practices in the US court.
I do argue that if you are multinational, you'd better be smart enough to know the local laws and alter your content if you have country-specific versions. But if your country A version doesn't meet the legal standards of country B, too bad for country B.
Something I think both sides have overlooked... (Score:4)
(A site in the US, for example, could tunnel onto a French network, and act as if a French server. In such a case, does US or French law apply? After all, although it's physically in the US, it's logically in France.)
Because of this one fact, it might not be provable beyond "reasonable doubt" that server X is in one nation or another. In future trials, all a defendent would have to do is cast doubt on which country the server was in, and the prosecution's case would be dead in the water.
Whilst I doubt that politicians are astute enough to see that kind of problem, it certainly implies that some kind of International treaty on Internet law enforcement is essential, if the courts are to have any meaning at all.
In this case, the banned items are banned in France. Since the French can access a US site as easily as a French site, the French courts seem to have felt that simply moving the connections overseas was not satisfactory. To be honest, I can certainly see their point. They ARE, at least, acknowledging that the Internet extends outside of national borders.
However, I also have to say I sympathise with Yahoo!. They're doing their best to provide a service, in an increasingly complicated environment. Unless they want to walk on egg-shells, for the rest of their existance, they have to do something to sort this mess out.
This is going to be a nasty one for the US, too. Remember, a certain GWB is over in Europe, right now, up to his armpits in condemnation. (Steve Bell's cartoon in The Guardian pretty much sums up European feelings, when he makes GWB out to be some cross between Yoda, a Redneck and an idiot.)
If the US legal system is -seen- to be anti-EU, right now, GWB is going to be in BIG trouble. France is a dominant player in Europe, and if they feel the US is dictating what each country can do or decide, you can wave bye-bye to any co-operation with the ABM system GWB is pushing.
(At first, that doesn't sound too bad. The US is big enough, and tough enough, to go it alone. On the other hand, Europe isn't so small that you can kick it around. Don't underestimate them, just because they're 4,000 or so miles away. They can be nasty, too.)
Re:But would this work both ways? (Score:2)
Re:Typical /. uninformed flamebait (Score:2)
Re:I Have The Solution (Score:2)
If they have a problem let 'em solve it within ... (Score:2)
The concept of Taliban having problems with the Web when they don't have (or want,) infrastructure worth crap is laughable.
The next possibility is squeezing the pipe.
If France has a problem with Yahoo, they know where the fibre connections are across their borders and they can filter the packets from and to Yahoo's IP addresses.
If anybody has a problem, they can unplug or apply IP filters. That's it. But its their problem and its up to them to solve it.
Re:French judge (Score:2)
Kiddie porn only became illegal in Japan two years ago. I don't recall any court cases in the US successfully forcing them to shut it down; it took diplomatic pressure to convince them to voluntarily pass a law.
There are other countries where the definition of "kiddie porn" doesn't equal the same thing as it does in the US.
This isn't a problem just in how we deal with podunk banana republics, this figures into how we deal with every nation in the world, because there isn't a single one of them whose laws coincide completely with ours on every subject that touches the internet.
-
Re:French judge (Score:2)
If you have the courage to post what country you're in, I'd love to pull up some stats about percentage of your country that goes hungry vs. the US.
No-one goes hungry in the US unless he wants to or is mentally defective. The US additionally produces much of the food that's imported into impoverished countries to feed their people.
In fact, the US government spends far more money seeing to it that children don't go hungry than it does pursuing child pornography.
We don't talk about the problem that much here not because we don't care, but because we solved the problem decades ago for OUR kids. Look to yours, troll.
-
World Government? (Score:2)
Maybe those conspiracy theorists weren't so far off base after all.
--
Re:World Government? (Score:2)
Heck... nearly anything in a typical bookstore could be found to be offensive and censored if you looked hard enough for easily offended people. And, actually, you don't have to look all that hard. :-)
--
Re:World Government? (Score:2)
I sure hate to reply to my own reply but there's an interesting interview [openoffice.org] with Richard Stallman on OpenOffice.org [openoffice.org] that touches a bit on this. His comments on NAFTA, WTO, etc. are interesting (but not all that surprising in light of what I've read of Stallman's writings in the past).
--
Re:But would this work both ways? (Score:2)
Re:Just to rain on eveybody's parade... (Score:2)
Yes, but their business in France does follow French laws. It's their businesses outside of France that they want to get a ruling on.
Are all McDonald's worldwide subject to the health restrictions levied on them in the U.S., the U.K, India, or South Africa? Why should multinational companies have to follow the lowest common denominator law in all countries just because they have a physical business presence in one repressive or backward place?
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Re:Typical /. uninformed flamebait (Score:2)
All of Yahoo (.fr or not) is bound by French laws for business they do in France. They are not bound by French law for business they do outside of France. If they don't want to obey French law, they can just stop selling things to people in France, or from people in France, and wash their hands of it.
Look at it this way: there are many places in Japan to purchase what in the US would be considered child pornography. So companies that sell that stuff in Japan don't sell it in the US, even if they sell other products in the US. They are bound by US law for business they do in the US, but have every right to cintinue selling that stuff in Japan.
---------------------------------------------
Re:But would this work both ways? (Score:2)
Re:Please let Yahoo win (Score:2)
We've seen that nobody in Europe, Australia, or likely, anywhere other than the US/Canada is willing to accept sub-standard movies for more money. So they buy players that don't impose restrictions.
Ditto for me and forced viewing of commercials. (Sixth Sense was the last DVD I'll ever buy)
Now, if we were free to buy the disk and then access its contents in a manner the movie industry didn't like, there wouldn't be a problem. Sure, Sony's DVD players would force this crap on you, but nobody else's would. Even if all the big ones had bought into it, someone would reverse engineer CSS and do what they wanted.
It's the laws forbidding this that I hate.
Re:We should lead the way in free speech (Score:2)
Child pornography is already illegal is so many ways it's funny. You can't make it (staturtory rape, exploitation, etc, etc), you can't distribute it (contributory infringement, etc).
We don't need to limit speech further, we need to actually arrest the makers of this.
And, if someone writes a pornographic story with a young character, so what? It's just words. You know, sticks and stones, etc...
IMHO we need 100% free speech. Some things you do with speech will be illegal, but the simple saying of the words shouldn't be.
Conspiring to kill someone is done with speech, but is illegal for other reasons. Inciting a riot is illegal regardless of your method, etc.
But in different context, everything said should be fine.
Re:French judge (Score:4)
No. Although I think kiddie porn has no place ANYWHERE, to protect the nature of the web we shouldn't be able to shut it down. It's not a matter of what I think about the content, but that if something's legal in the country of origin, then that content should be able to be published. Should China be able to sue and shut down US websites that discuss anti-communism and freedom of religion? No. They shouldn't be able to. Instead they block that content to the best of their ability. That's the way it should be. Leave it to those who disagree with something to block it.
On this specific matter though, yahoo does operate in France. The French can kick yahoo out of their country, or try their best to prohibit their citizens from accessing US servers. Yahoo.fr should be governed by French law, but that's the only place French law should have a say on what the company does.
His Honor Jeremy Fogel (Score:4)
Jeremy Fogel presided over my divorce proceedings six years ago. My case was nearly last on the docket and I was able to watch him run his courtroom for half a day (unfortunately @ $200/hr). Some very ugly and bitter domestic situations were presented to him and I was fascinated at both the objectivity and the compassion he showed in dealing with each. I was worried that by the time my case came up (ultimately settled) he would be burnt out and not at the top of his game. I was relieved and quite impressed, however, with how he was able to treat each case as if the two sides and himself were the only people present and it was the first case of the day.
Six years later, my new wife was granted U.S. citizenship. By random chance, Jeremy Fogel, now a federal judge, presided over the swearing in ceremony for her and 1100 other people from 187 different countries. It was quite funny to look around the visitors gallery and see how many men in the audience registered a shock of recognition.
His customary opening speech talked to the rights and responsibilities these new citizens were assuming. For someone as bitterly cynical about the U.S political process as I am, I was surprised to find myself feeling the long dormant stirrings of patriotism in response to his utterly sincere and thoughtful comments about the role of individuals to effect change. He even acknowleged the abuses of corporate power and lobbyists yet was still able to demonstrate how in the end it was up to "us" to make a difference.
Political granstanding? A calculated performance to show off his oratory skills in a public forum? A voice of calm reason and deliberation in a world where thoughtless knee-jerk jingoism is the norm? I don't know which, but I left there knowing that the broad brushstrokes I normally use to paint U.S. federal government "bureaucrats" were just intellectual laziness and Jeremy Fogel was an existence proof to the contrary.
Now as I read this story about Yahoo! and the French courts, his name pops out at me, and once again some aspect of my life has intersected with this judge. I don't know his personal politics and I've never bothered to review his judicial record, but somehow I know that this hearing has at least some chance of justice being served.
Godel, help us! (Score:2)
1. The Judge says: "foreign juridiction can't force a local company to comply with foreign law". Then the French decision can't force yahoo to stop selling these items, so French justice can't account french yahoo employee in france for yahoo content, which means the federal judge (as a foreign to France) will force french citizen in France to comply with US law, which contradicts the original statement.
2. The Judge says: "foreign juridiction can force a US company to comply with foreign law". Then, US jusridiction should be able to force yahoo french employees to comply with the first Amendment too...
The only escape is to say: "Everyone on Earth must comply with US law, but noone in US has to comply with foreign law". And I really think this is the conclusion the judge will reach, and most US people will be Ok with it.
Re:take this into consideration... FALSE (Score:3)
Bullshit. It is just plain false. France even has laws that prevent media to show people with manacles until they are proven guilty.
What is at stake is wether Yahoo! has to take care of the law in a country where it makes business. Well, the French courts think they do. This has nothing to do with free speech. This has to do with selling war objects that offend their memories.
What was asked was not to remove any (French-)illegal objects from auctions. It was to make unaccessible to French people these objects. If Yahoo! decided that it was best for its business to remove these for everybody, well... it's Yahoo!'s choice.
Re:Please let Yahoo win (Score:2)
Or maybe they just wouldn't sell you books.
Re:Please let Yahoo win (Score:2)
IMHO, there's nothing morally wrong with DVD Region Encoding, but it shouldn't be illegal to defeat it.
Lame moderation (Score:2)
To the spineless moderator: fuck you, I'm still at the karma cap.
Please let Yahoo win (Score:5)
What this case is really about is this: when publishing content online, do you have to comply with your own country's laws, or every country's laws? This ties in with RMS's recent Harm from the Hague [slashdot.org] piece that Slashdot ran. If you think the DMCA is bad, just wait until you have to comply with 50 different versions of it.
I know the geek answer--cyberspace is global, nobody can regulate the internet, information wants to be free, etc., but I don't think the rest of the world is ready for that answer. They're not willing to take the plunge into some sort of cyber-anarchy (damn, I hate the word "cyber"), and there's no chance in hell everyone will agree on a uniform set of laws (god help us if they do). I don't have an easy solution. I understand the reasons for IP laws (promoting innovation), and I can also see how broken they've become, but I don't see a magical fix. I don't know how jurisdiction conflicts should be resolved over the internet. The same treaty that would allow the US to go after child porn in Amsterdam would allow the Taliban in Afghanistan to censor half the non-porn sites in the US.
One more thing--if you think things are messy now, with the internet and computers, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Biotech is going to shake things up even more, and nanotech is going to make or break the human race... We have to get our act together before it's too late.
Re:The world is not free. (Score:2)
The US is also one of the worst offenders for attempting extend its laws outside of its own borders.
So it's more likely that the Hague treaty will be used to impose US courts decisions on Europe than vice versa.At least initially
Re:Typical /. uninformed flamebait (Score:2)
However this opens up a whole can of worms about the likes of DeCSS. One question is would the French court have ruled differently had Yahoo! been based in a country were courts never make extrateritorial judgements.
Re:Typical /. uninformed flamebait (Score:2)
Or US courts suing non US citizens for upsetting US corporates...
Any complaints about this, in the US, look very much like a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Re:Typical /. uninformed flamebait (Score:2)
Can people in the US directly access your "home branch". The central issue is if websites are only where the physical server is or if they are anywhere they can be accessed. Either interpretation can lead to problems.
Re:Typical /. uninformed flamebait (Score:2)
Utterly wrong. France has every right to tell a company how to behave in France. "In France" in this context includes even if the company only solicits business by post, telephone, fax, websites, etc.
Re:Typical /. uninformed flamebait (Score:2)
Exactly the same issue as DeCSS.
As for the "content" not being "within France" as soon as someone in France brings up a web page then that "content" is definitly "within France". How can it not be? Trying to distinguish between yahoo.com and yahoo.fr is meaningless. They are the same entity anyway.
Re:Please let Yahoo win (Score:2)
That means that organisations who wish to trade anywhere in the world cannot simply produce a standard "catalogue" for everywhere. Which is how they have to operate anyway, so it's not really an issue. Indeed it is a somewhat bogus issue in the first place, since there are few companies geared up to sell to anywhere in the first place.
And what right does Afghanistan or Zimbabwe have to determine what I can buy here in the USA
what right does the US have to determine what people can buy in Afghanistan, Zimbabwe or for that matter Norway?
This ruling has nothing to do with what a US company can sell in the US, it's about a French court telling a US company that their operations in France must comply with French law.
Unlike US courts the French ones actually understand the concept of international borders. When did you see the French passing laws which say "You can't do business with France if you do business with some small country we don't like".
Re:take this into consideration... (Score:2)
No they are setting terms and conditions on material Yahoo! wants brought into France.
However, this action should be a business decision made by Yahoo! and not something dictated by courts overstepping their jurisdiction.
They have jurisdiction, since the ruling is about what Yahoo! may do in France
If you want to find courts overstepping their jurisdiction go look in the US.
Re:take this into consideration... (Score:2)
In which case the US court is operating completly outside their jurisdiction and completly ignoring international law.
If a US citizen breaks the law in France they simply waving a US passport won't impress the French authorities (A US diplomatic passport would simply mean immediate deportation and barred from entering France.)
There are also these things called "extradition treaties"...
Re:Just to rain on eveybody's parade... (Score:2)
Actually the are subject to local laws if they have any presence in a place. Having some kind of physical presence makes it easier for the authorities to enforce the law.
Re:Just to rain on eveybody's parade... (Score:2)
The US is unusual in that it does expect its citizens to obey US laws at all times.
But US people appear to assume here (and in quite a few other areas) that they are the "rule" rather than the "exception".
This appears to be carried over into assuming that the content on webservers located in the US should always be subject to US law, regardless of where it is being served to.
There is also the issue that the US is hypocritical in that US court have been quite happy to attempt to get websites outside the US shut down When all the French court is saying is "don't serve this stuff to France" (dosn't even have to be perfect, just a "good faith" attempt.)
If the French court had ordered Yahoo! to shut down then there would be a case.
Re:Just to rain on eveybody's parade... (Score:2)
This analogy dosn't quite work. The nature of the web makes the actual physical location of the server rather unimportant. Also Ford had better make sure they can legally have the car delivered to France or they wind up having to pay for it to cross the Atlantic twice. Simple self interest on Ford's part would ensure that this couldn't happen.
Multiply this potential mess by having U.S. wings of multinational businesses having to comply with the laws of 100 other countries, and the result is an unworkable situation.
Maybe they should insist that all their customers speak US "English" or US "Spanish" run their entire budgets in US dollers, make sure they have US telephone numbers and addresses, etc. If a company wants to deal in international business then they need to accept all the costs involved. Anyway even if they were to operate only within the US the can still run up against differences in local laws.
If France doesn't want Nazi memorabilia coming into the country, tell French ISPs to block the American Yahoo! auction site
Maybe they should do exactly that, since Yahoo! didn't like the proposed solution, which would of had less impact on Yahoo!
Re:Just to rain on eveybody's parade... (Score:2)
They are saying what can and can't be done in France Where is there even a question about jurisdiction?
Re:cyberpunk world here we come (Score:2)
But the US government values it's own continued existance. A smoking crater would not make a very good US government...
France is not "some small third world country", either.
Maybe part of this issue is upset when someone else applies the same kind of policy.
Re:There is no United States of Europe (Score:2)
Except that the original judgment offered them a way to do the first.
Re:How is this different? (Score:2)
Could a US state demmand that such "Not available" tags were included?
Re:Whiney French bastards (Score:2)
Kind of hard to sell things to people in France and not have some kind of presence in France. When something is in France it can hardly be on "US soil".
I'm not a lawyer, but I do believe that's why we have borders and things like that.
Top of the list for courts which need to understand this are those in the USA. Norway is not part of the US, nor Cuba, nor Panama (well the US did lease a bit of Panama, but the lease has run out.)
Re:Unfortunate lack of respect (Score:2)
They may care about these items being traded in the rest of the world but consider this outside their jurisdiction...
Is that what you want to hear as a response of any South American Nation selling drugs to the US, when the US asks them to stop that? No, you expect them to respect US law, and not sell the stuff to americans.
As an added incentive if they don't agree then they get bombed.
Re:USA can kiss Cuba and Canadas ass (Score:2)
However IIRC there is a difference here. The French court is saying that Yahoo! cannot sell these items to people in France
The US is telling Canadian retailers they cannot sell Cuban goods to anywhere.
The US government thinks it can apply US law around the world, so why shouldn't the French government play the same game ?
Except that they are not playing the same "game".
The French court isn't stopping Yahoo! selling anything in the US, but the US is trying to tell Canadian companies what they can sell in Canada.
If they were then either the US would be saying "don't sell this stuff to the US, but whereever else you sell it is your business" or the French court would be saying "don't sell these to anyone".
Re:I Have The Solution (Score:2)
Except that they could hold on to both. With the original judgment actually giving them a way to do this. Using a method which Yahoo! though was fine to trumpet to banner ad sellers.
Re:Finally the US is getting done to them.. (Score:2)
The difference here is that nobody has ordered Yahoo! to shut down.
If the US court has behaved in the same way as the French court they would have passed a judgment requiring some kind of "good faith" attempt to block access to the service from the US.
Re:Read the CNN more acrefully (Score:2)
The reason this was suggested is that yahoo! made a fuss about it being possible to target banner ads geographically.
Re:Please let Yahoo win (Score:2)
No the analogy would be you cannot put "caffeinated mints" in any catalogue you send to Sweden.
What would matter is that you are offering the products for sale in Sweden, not what you called the catalogue.
You are assuming that because the US attempts to apply laws to its citizens outside the US the rest of the world does the same. When most nations apply their laws only to people present in their territory.
Re:Rehabilitation Of The Swastika (Score:2)
It is a truly ancient symbol the true origins of which are lost in time though it has been postulated that they may be in the old hunter-gather traditions of Sun symbols, as are Stonehenge and other stone circles. The swastika arises in the history of most great and not-so-great) empires.
The reversal of the swastika by the 3rd Reich, was seen by some as a symbol similar to the inversion of the cross by satanists.
Toxic dumping (Score:2)
Nope. That's what everyone is trying to use Australia for, not the US. After all what is all that desert good for anyhow?
Re:Toxic dumping (Score:2)
Personally I think if they want to use nuclear power then they should think of what to do with their own waste. I've nothing against nuclear power itself, just with countries that can't deal with the undesirable side-effects.
Re:Please let Yahoo win (Score:5)
And of course, if we allow foreign governments to determine what our companies can sell online, than why should we not allow them to determine what our news organizations can say online? I'm sure criticizing the Burmese government is illegal in Burma, but if Burmese citizens can read those criticisms online in USA based sources, well, Burma could certainly sue CNN for not blocking Burmese access to derogatory and demeaning comments about the Burmese government.
I'm certain that someone will flame me for sounding jingoistic, but we (meaning the USA) are a sovereign country, and we have our own laws and constitution because we are allowed to determine for ourselves what restrictions we will or won't place on ourselves. If we allow France to strike this blow against us, the path is open for any other country to do the same, and at that point, we are nothing more than the ultimate colony of every country in the world, subject to being stepped upon by any nation that wants to.
And these comments do not apply to just the USA. Any country which allowed another to determine laws for it is then just as surely under their heel as if they had been militarily defeated. (Much like when France was subject to German law in the early 1940s...) (And for those that will take this point and run, No, treaties don't apply, as those are agreed to by the countries that are held to them. This is a case of France peremptorily subjecting the USA to French law, without our prior agreement.)
Re:Something I think both sides have overlooked... (Score:2)
But the court already ruled on that issue, since it was raised by technical experts close to the court (pres de la cour). The court found that any French citizen who took any extra step to circumvent detection by Yahoo quite clearly was doing so to circumvent the law. That implies the citizen is the law breaker, not Yahoo.
Yahoo, to comply with the court ruling, merely has to filter the content and the IP address, and place a legal disclaimer on the web page requiring the French citizen to click on a button or pop-up to continue. Once the French citizen proceeds into the web page selling/auctioning nazi memorabilia, then it is the citizen breaking the law, not Yahoo.
Yahoo has never been required to eliminate all nazi sales on its web sites. That was the original claim by the anti-hate activist group who launched the first lawsuit, but it was thrown out by an intelligent judge. But the US media, as well as
(A site in the US, for example, could tunnel onto a French network, and act as if a French server...
Why tunnel? With the internet, the physical server can be anywhere, tunneling isn't required, just routing. But Yahoo has a physical presence in Paris (11Bis rue Torricelli [pagesjaunes.fr]), and thus must obey French law, whether they put their servers on Sealand, or in California.
Other auction sites were performing the same filtering function, for both France and Germany, which is why eBay, Amazon, &c. were never part of the lawsuit. eBay has since banned a whole bunch of sensitive items, mooting the point. Certainly the lawyer fees could have paid a dozen PHP programmers a dozen times over for such a filter.
the AC
Typical /. uninformed flamebait (Score:5)
Yahoo has a commercial presence in France, both a web site (yahoo.fr), and a sales and marketing group based in Paris. This makes them liable to French law.
The French court heard that Yahoo was telling customers they could target banner ads based on IP address blocks, serving up French banners to French surfers, as well as target specific markets based on keywords.
The court ordered Yahoo to place a disclaimer on auctions when the IP block matched a French IP address, and the auction contained certain words mostly associated with nazi memorabilia. By placing a warning on the web page telling the potential bidder that such sales were against French law, Yahoo would have absolved itself of any further legal implications of such an auction. If a French citizen continues to bid/buy nazi goods, then the criminal act is being performed by an informed citizen who has chosen to bid even after being reminded of the law, not by Yahoo.
Yahoo lied to the court, claiming it was technically impossible to add a disclaimer based on IP block and keywords, despite a number of witnesses telling the court that was exactly how banner advertising works. The court didn't even require 100% accuracy, merely a good effort to inform French citizens who might happen across such an auction.
Now Yahoo has been ordered to cease all commercial activity in France, although I believe they are still operating in defiance of the court order. And they hope that by appealing to a US court they can ignore other countries laws.
The corollary to this is a French business operating in the US, but trying to claim they don't have to obey US law. If the court rules that a foreign based business doesn't have to obey the laws in other countries, could the US become a major dumping ground for toxic wastes? Oh, wait, with Bush in the whitehouse, the US will become the favorite toxic waste dump for the world
the AC
Freedom of speech nowhere near absolute (Score:2)
And there are undoubtedly many state laws in which the 1st ammendment wasn't the highest priority.
--
Re:US sovereignty (Score:4)
The second something like that happens it's easy to force them to decide if they really want to allow it to happen. Just find some people from another country where discussion of Christianity is illegal, and try to have ALL Christian web sites shut down on the basis of the other country's laws.
Should take all of about 5 seconds for the gov't to decide that we're not going to allow other countries to dictate what can be posted on the internet in the US.
---
Re:But would this work both ways? (Score:2)
If you are an American company, the American legal system has already decided that moving your servers offshore does not protect you from the law. Jay Cohen was convicted [usdoj.gov] in a New York court because his company was incorporated in America and therefore found to be operating in America even though he wasn't.
Re:Please let Yahoo win (Score:2)
You are right. People make this too complicated. France can order Yahoo-France to do anything it wants, including to stop doing buisiness until Yahoo-USA stops hosting Nazi memoribilia auctions or stops hosting auctions altogether or stops allowing people named Bob to work there. About all that Yahoo can do is cry "gosh, France, you suck".
Yahoo can flip France a big fat finger if and only if they are ready to shut down shop in France. If they do this, then what is France going to do to enforce their ruling? Invade the US? I doubt it.
The US case is completely irrelevant, because by the same token, unless the US is ready to back it up militarily (as we did in Panama) a US judge cannot change the fact that a foreign government is sovereign in its territory, even if it uses that sovereignty to implement tyranical rules. Since the idea of the US invading France is hard to imagine (and a bad idea under the NATO treaty), Yahoo-USA can give up Yahoo-France or it can comply with French law as define by the French legal system, regardless of what any US judge says.
Re:But would this work both ways? (Score:2)
Yahoo is incorporated in the United States. Corporations as well as individuals need to abide by foreign laws when the take action in foreign countries, however I think that this specific French court has gone too far on this occasion.
Hate speech is illegal in many countries. Is the next step to have phone companies digitally monitor phone conversations for hate speech and disconnect the call automatically. Europe seems to be very protective of it's population's privacy, but is it really an invasion of someones privacy to have a computer monitor the lines, and do the disconnecting, if no human being ever listens in on the conversation, and records of who was disconnected aren't kept. It would save possibly thousands or millions of people from being subjected to hateful language .
Re:Rehabilitation Of The Swastika (Score:3)
Bet you don't see Microsoft putting any penguins on their packaging any time soon.
cyberpunk world here we come (Score:2)
The internet creates a huge mess for governments, the extent of which is only now being uncovered. They've never had to deal with something so benign and abstract that can undermine their laws, culture, or even power structure for that matter. Think of how many resources policing the internet would take as far as monitors and lawers to keep all sites in the world "inline" with every country. Basically it can't be done. But they will try. And fail, even if it takes many, many years to reach that point.
Back to the US. Keep in mind the current case is over nazi memorabilia auctions. Not exactly the biggest market out there. If issues like this start to affect much larger markets, megacorp will stand up and say NO WAY. Coupled with the US government, they won't allow some small third world country to dictate internet policy. The US breaks any treaty it no longer feels is in it's best interest, and this won't change. But megacorps will still be able to use the same treaty in ways that RMS described yesterday.
If you don't have the money to buy government support, however, (as in you're a small site that deals in, say, anti-chinese government commentary)you might be out of luck.
So here is the long term net result, IMO:
government power: weakened
free speech: weakened
commerce/corporate power: strengthened
Re:Toxic dumping (Score:2)
You aren't actually proposing that the desert be used for something just because you think it's useless, are you????
Re:Ostrich Syndrome (Score:2)
More does not mean better. They simply weren't prepared for what Germany threw at them. Germany also spent a few years trying out new battle tactics in the Spanish Civil War.
Maginot Line! Great idea! Let's build half a wall and hope they don't go around!
From what I remember, the Germans went over the Maginot Line (paratroopers), not around it.
But despite those nit picky things, I do agree with you. France's banishment of anything Nazi does seem to be a knee-jerk reaction to a section of history we'd all rather not repeat.
USA can kiss Cuba and Canadas ass (Score:2)
The US government thinks it can apply US law around the world, so why shouldn't the French government play the same game ?
We should lead the way in free speech (Score:5)
That was a bold ruling. We should be following in that noble tradition, following our heritage, and leading the way in free speech. I wrote once before, in another forum, and I still believe:
Of course, I fully expect the court to rule in Yahoo's favor. But it is up to us to lead the way in cases like this, and others, to show that the best antitode to Free Speech is, in fact, more Free Speech.
OT: Petain & Vichy (Score:2)
Ostrich Syndrome (Score:3)
Unfortunate lack of respect (Score:2)
I am german and concider myself as an advocate on free speech. I do not agree with the french judge, and I don't think the way we handle Nazi remnants in Germany is the right way. Actually I think the assertion of free speech in the states is one of the most valuable achievements in todays US.
That said, I disrepect all you arrogant bastards that think the US are the ultimate ruler of the world in any moral or jurisdictional way. How dare you support US companies, that make money in France in ways that are illegal there (e.g. selling nazi goods from french to french persons) ??? Even if you don't agree with this jurisdiction you should respect it.
Cheers, Peter
A french position (Score:2)
Why the last interdictions ? Because we think history books, open discussions with open-minded people and such can better educate you than hateful propaganda.
Now the position. I won't discuss here if it's right or not to let Yahoo! sell such objects out of France because every nation has the right to have its laws. I think it's a shame that a french judge ruled out of France. Yes they can force Yahoo! to remove the nazi objects from french Yahoo ! and maybe force them to try to block french citizens from viewing them on world's sites. But that's all. Or else we'll burn others countries into flame because of their habits, religion, numbered bank accounts, whatever.
Rehabilitation Of The Swastika (Score:5)
Do they ban only Nazi related items, or anything with a swastika on it? As you may know, the swastika was an ancient symbol with positive connotations before the 3rd reich.
There are people trying to rehabilitate the swastika [manwoman.net] as a symbol.
Here we are over 50 years after the war, and the swastika is still taboo. With France's action to stifle commerce in the US, will this help rehabilitate the swastika? Will a symbol of oppression be turned into a symbol of freedom?
Maybe, maybe not. People still have a hard time separating the symbol from nazism. Case in point: A neighborhood "family" restaurant near where I live has old WWII and WWI posters on the walls (mostly WWI). One of the US WWI posters actually had a small swastika on it (about half an inch accross, so you almost had to look for it). I would occasionaly point this out when eating there and tell people that the swastika was not always bad. Some people are still surprised to hear that.
Well, after a few years, somebody magic-markered over it, which was OK because they only magic-markered the plastic cover over the poster, not the actual poster. Later, the poster was removed. It was a World War I poster. Obviously there was no connection to the nazis, but try explaining that to people who get upset.
I don't condone what the nazis did, and you are a troll if you suggest so. The whole point of this post is to raise awareness that Swastika!=nazi. However, I also believe that people have a right (subject to IP constraints) to post what they want on the net. Remember, if they yank Aryan Nations stuff off the web, they can yank your stuff too. That's the price we pay for free speech, and it's a pretty small price since I can easily ignore that crap.
Two issues (Score:2)
Re:Ostrich Syndrome (Score:2)
> cures these people of their problems, just turns
> them into docile bunnies. It is well-documented > somewhere, I am just sure of it!
I was not saying that the ruling is right; it's not. I'm just saying that the motivations underlying it were to adress a problem which has nothing to do with "France not facing her history", or this sort of things.
Re:Ostrich Syndrome (Score:2)
Re:Ostrich Syndrome (Score:3)
> cannot face history.
Among the numerous negative and preposterous stereotypes on contemporary France, this one may be even further from reality than the others. France faces its Vichyist past in the eyes, sometimes even up to a point of obsession.
Here, we have a bunch of bigots who have found a sympathetic judge. Nazi artefacts can be seen everywhere in France, including of course TV and history books (including those for young children). If you enter a French library or bookstore, you will find that several shelves are occupied by history or fiction books related to the nazi era and/or the collaboration and the Vichyist goverment.
In the specific case of Yahoo! auctions, those who asked for this ruling were distrurbed by the fact that these items are very probably sold to sick animals, who do not have much interest in history, but rather a fascination for hate, violence, genocide or morbidity.
Re:take this into consideration... (Score:2)
Right, but they are asking Yahoo to remove the content which resides on a server on US soil which is protected by the First Ammendment's right to free speech.
The French court is clearly wrong here and if they don't want to see the content, they should block it themselves under their own laws in their own country!
--
Re:Please let Yahoo win (Score:2)
I'm always telling my friends... the coming biotech revolution will make the computer revolution look like nothing. And I'm a biochemist, so hopefully I know a little about it.
Nanotech I am not convinved on yet. There are precious few results, though the theories are great. I have a feeling that nanotech will see some very narrow uses, but more broadly biotech will be the big hammer. It has quite a head start.
Re:But would this work both ways? (Score:2)
Say Djibouti had kiddie porn sites. The US could cut any internet access to that country, and tell other countrys (lets say england), that we will cut all english internet connections to the US unless england cut its connections to Djibouti. Thereby removing Djibouti from the internet itself. Wow, it almost seems inevitable that there will be a world government, or at least world law on the internet. This must be how the Illuminati is going to attempt control of the world...
No (Score:2)
Re:World Government? (Score:2)
Keep the Internet free, and if someone doesn't like something on a site, they don't have to go there.
There is no United States of Europe (Score:2)
While I firmly believe that this French court Doesn't Get It (TM) and they are being stupid, it also doesn't really matter even if what I think it is true. If they want to be stupid that is their right. It will simply hurt the French economy and maybe Ebay's profits. Their choice, their funeral. If they think it is a good idea to treat their citizens as if they are idiots, there isn't much Ebay, as an American company, is going to do to change that. Should Ebay try? Sure. And I'd expect the US government to support them to some extent. But if a country wants to be that stupid, so be it. The world is a big place and France is only a very small part of it.
Re:But would this work both ways? (Score:5)
I have no idea how the courts and nations involved will end up resolving these questions, but here's how I think they should resolve it...
There are typically two parties involved in a commercial transaction on the Web: the buyer and the seller. I think each party ought to be subject to the laws of their native country. If the U.S. wants to make it illegal to gamble online, so be it - there won't be any gambling sites hosted in the U.S. If France wants to disallow the sale of Nazi memorabilia, so be it - French citzens purchasing Nazi memorabilia will be subject to fines.
Of course, this approach doesn't address multiple-party transactions, and it doesn't recognize "carrier" parties - the owner of an Internet backbone that routes some of the bits that enable the transaction or a credit card issuer that authorizes the transaction. Those are tougher to deal with because they can't really be held accountable for probing the exact nature of the transactions they are enabling.
The only other alternative I see is an internation treaty describing universal rules for Internet usage, and I don't see that happening anytime soon.
Re:Typical /. uninformed flamebait (Score:2)
Three French anti-racist associations sued Yahoo! Inc. (not Yahoo! France): they wanted Yahoo! to stop displaying Nazi-related objects on their website yahoo.com (again, not yahoo.fr) and on their affiliate site geocities.com
The court ruled that Yahoo! Inc. had to block French citizens from accessing pages containing this stuff, based on French law saying that you can't display Nazi-related objects in France (and though the server is in the US, pages can be displayed in France, that's what the court said)
Yahoo! said it was impossible to do. The court named experts to decide if it could be done or not. A few months later, the experts proposed techniques that permitted Yahoo! to block French citizens from accessing the Nazi stuff. The court ruled that Yahoo! then had to do it.
Now Yahoo! refused to do it (though it decided to remove Nazi stuff from Auctions, and some other stuff too) and an US court has to decide if the French court ruling can be applied in the US.
A summary of the case (in French [sorry I didn't find anything in English], made by a lawyer) is available online here [juriscom.net].
Yahoo! was never ordered to cease commercial activity in France, and it is still operating over here (see yahoo.fr).
Everything you're saying about Yahoo! being a French business appealing to an US court is also wrong. This is US based Yahoo! Inc. that was sued in France.
Re:Ostrich Syndrome (Score:2)
Not just any nipples: only female nipples. Is this sexist or what?
In any case, some laws aren't made out of sense, but out of cultural taboos. Like forbidding married couples to perform oral sex in their own homes, with the windows closed.
Common sense is the least common of all the senses.
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Re:Just to rain on eveybody's parade... (Score:2)
It is illegal for me, as an American, to go to France and smoke a Cuban cigar. But it is NOT up to France or the cigar store in France to enforce that. This is absolutely no different.
The requirement for enforcement in the Yahoo! case should be completely on France and the action should be taken against the person ASKING for the information.
-S
Re:Typical /. uninformed flamebait (Score:2)
Now if someone sneaks a Ford car designed for the US market into France, it IS NOT Ford's responsibility... it is the responsability of the person who brought that car into France.
Ford DOES NOT have to make and sell cars worldwide that meet French safety laws.
Yahoo! DOES NOT have to censor it's worldwide content so that they meet French censorship laws. It is the reponsibility of the person who brought that content into France (ie, the person sitting in front of the web browser). That the content exists and can be brought into France is no different that "the car exists and can be brought into France".
It's not Ford's problem and it isn't Yahoo's either.
-S
Re:French judge (Score:2)
In every case I've seen, relating to legality of content, it has always been decided that the location of of publication is the location of the servers distributing the content, rather than the client browsers, where the content is displayed. As such, if yahoo has complied with the order of the french court by removing the offending content from the french servers, then the judge has reached the limit of his jurisdiction. The judge can not compel Yahoo to act to modify content on servers not located in France. To suggest otherwise would fly in the face of every web content related leval decision in the past half decade.
--CTH
---
Just to rain on eveybody's parade... (Score:2)
Yahoo has a physical business presence [yahoo.com] in France. As such, their business must abide by French laws.
This isn't a case of some idiot French judge trying to enforce their laws on foreign countries. This is a case of a French judge enforcing French law on a company that operates in France.
Personally, I really hope Yahoo loses this suit. Look at the precedent it would set--that it's okay for multinational companies to disregard the law in nations where they have a physical business presence!
Re:Ostrich Syndrome (Score:4)
Dude, take your pick:
- A country in which the sale and purchase of Nazi-related items is strictly forbidden; or
- A country in which the public display of nipples is strictly forbidden.
I challenge you to find a country that doesn't have stupid laws. At least the French anti-Nazi law has some sense behind it.France can indeed face hitory, though. There is no lack of remembrance monuments, not the least of which is the Deportation Monument, at the very heart of Paris. Insinuating that a nation can't face history based on a single law of arguable merit is, well, pretty damn insulting.
Re:Rehabilitation Of The Swastika (Score:2)
I know some Indian families who when moving into a new house or buying a new car they put swastikas on it for good luck. But in Europe or US swastika = Nazi and these redneck white supremacist clubs also use the swastika as their symbol of white power as well.
Just a reminder to all :
Freedom! (Score:2)
But I still think the whole world should have the same freedoms that the US people have. World Wide free speech.
How is this different? (Score:2)
When I drive over the Maryland state line into Virginia I know my radar detector is illegal. Virginia doesn't sue Maryland or Whistler (a radar detector manufacturer). They simply ticket the person in possession of the detector and confiscate the device.
France's politicians need to realize that the illegal items (HTML pages) aren't located in an area where Nazi memorabilia is illegal (US) and that they should target the people (French citizens) who "order" the items (again, HTML). Maybe they can catch it at the border and "confiscate" it (NetNanny for Yahoo! France).
At that point, they should take a step back and realize how ridiculous they look. Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it.
Re:maybe yahoo was just weak? (Score:2)
Yahoo does bussiness in france, therefore they have to deal with french laws too. Thats why they're wasting time listening to a franch judge.
The silly french just don't realize the impossibleness of internet censorship. For the time being, I'm all for the plan of "cut france off from yahoo and leave a letter getting people pissed at their govt". But regardless of what happens, I bet in 10 years we'll look back and laugh about how people once thought they could regulate online content.
-
Broken enforcement... (Score:2)
The law is trying to adapt itself in an evolutionary way to revolutionary problems. With a little luck, this'll start the collapse of the whole damn system altogether
Re:French judge (Score:5)
Imagine some banana republic sets up a data haven and says, kiddie porn isn't illegal in Gamboonia. The question is, can the US (and decent people everywhere) shut the site down? Should we be able to? Is it functonally possible to prevent US citizens from accessing the proscribed content, and if not who's problem is that? Here in the USA we think it's okay to collect Nazi memorabilia. France doesn't agree and they want to make it the content provider's problem to keep French people from accessing the proscribed materials. The problem is, if they can't (and they probably can't) then France ends up getting to dictate policy to the rest of the world.
Yahoo is just trying to keep it's customers happy while avoiding tangling with foreign law. If you're doing business with/in a country you have to deal with their laws even if they are disparate from you home country's laws.
Re:French judge (Score:3)
How about putting this a different way, an American publishing house publishes a book on subject X and that happens to be not allowed in country Z (where the publishing house has offices). If someone from country Z bought the book in America, and took it home with them would it be "right and proper" for the courts in country Z to tell the publishing house to stop exports of the book or to burn all copies of the book because the topic is illegal?
NO Why? Because it is unreasonable (you can't seriously expect the publisher to make sure that a purchaser isn't from country Z). It is the job the government of country Z to prevent import by whatever means they deem fit as they have made it illegal.
So my argument on this matter is: if the French want to ban such content they should do what the Chinese, Saudi Arabian etc. governments have done, that is prevent access to such sites themselves. You might not agree with the policies of these countries but if they say something is illegal they prevent you from getting to it.
But would this work both ways? (Score:5)
Re:Typical /. uninformed flamebait (Score:2)
"Yahoo has a commercial presence in France, both a web site (yahoo.fr), and a sales and marketing group based in Paris. This makes them liable to French law."
Only Yahoo's French websites and their business practices within France would fall under French jurisdiction. If all companies that operated in the US had to, say, comply with US minimum wage laws even outside of US borders, there wouldn't be such a draw to manufacturers to set up shop in China or Mexico.
Yahoo lied to the court, claiming it was technically impossible to add a disclaimer based on IP block and keywords, despite a number of witnesses telling the court that was exactly how banner advertising works. The court didn't even require 100% accuracy, merely a good effort to inform French citizens who might happen across such an auction.
It's not a question about whether it would have been easy for Yahoo to comply with the requests of the French court, but whether Yahoo should have to comply to begin with. It's either a just ruling or it's not, no gray area. Just because it would have been easy for Rosa Parks to sit in the back of the bus doesn't mean that the law was alright to begin with.
Now Yahoo has been ordered to cease all commercial activity in France, although I believe they are still operating in defiance of the court order.
I haven't heard one way or the other if this is true (a link or two would be nice), nor do I know much about the French legal system, but I DO know that most American DA's would love to make a name for themselves by going after a big company like Yahoo for defying a court order like that. Lots of headlines (read "free political advertising").
Yahoo did this, Yahoo did that, Yahoo isn't a very nice company, Yahoo is pro-Nazi, blah blah blah... The issue still seems to be whether a French court can hold Yahoo accountable for information on US-based sites.
If the French government doesn't want to let their own people censor themselves, the worst they should be able to do is force French ISPs to censor the content within French borders. All in all, though, Freenet seems to be progressing rather nicely...