Internet

• Author: International Law Group

Yahoo! is a California based internet services provider with an international reach. Yahoo! web pages and services often include auctioneer services, and are available to anyone in a country that is able to access the Yahoo.com website. On April 5, 2000, La Ligue Contre Le Racisme et L'Antisemitisme of France (LICRA) sent a "cease and desist" letter to Yahoo!, alleging that the availability of Nazi and Third Reich-related memorabilia for sale on the Yahoo! website was offensive to French law. LICRA subsequently served Yahoo! with process in California and filed a civil suit against Yahoo! in French Court.

Agreeing with the argument advanced by LICRA, the French Court ordered Yahoo! to (1) eliminate access to any material on the Yahoo.com auction site which offered for sale any Nazi object; (2) eliminate the access of French citizens to web pages on Yahoo.com displaying text, extracts, or quotations from Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and the so-called "Protocol of the Elders of Zion," (3) post a warning to French citizens on Yahoo.fr (the Yahoo France link) that any search through Yahoo.com may lead to sites containing material prohibited by the pertinent section of the French Criminal Code, and that such viewing of the prohibited material may result in legal action against the French Internet user; and (4) remove from all browser directories accessible in the French Republic any index headings entitled "negationists" under the heading "Holocaust."

Additionally, the French Court held that it could retroactively apply damages of 100,000 Euros for each day that Yahoo! failed to comply with the order. In response, Yahoo! asked the French Court to reconsider the terms of the order, claiming that the posting of a warning on Yahoo.fr was the only method technologically possible for Yahoo! to comply with. The French Court reaffirmed its earlier decision upon hearing testimony from an expert witness.

Advancing the claim that the decision of the French Court impermissibly infringed upon its First Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution, Yahoo! filed a complaint in a California federal court. It sought "...a declaratory judgment that the French Court's orders are neither cognizable nor enforceable under the laws of the United States." Defendant LICRA moved to dismiss on the grounds that the U.S. court lacked personal jurisdiction over them. The court denied the motion and Yahoo! now seeks summary judgment.

The court finds that although France reserves...