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Yahoo! Given Reprieve In French Court Battle
Spudley writes "The BBC is reporting that Yahoo! has been given a reprieve by a French court. The judge had previously ruled that they must block access in France to any Nazi-related auctions on their site. The judge has now asked for a panel to be set up, to provided technical information, before he decides the case." For more information, check out original article about this. It's a pretty interesting debate - how do national laws apply to the Internet?
The Nazi says, "I'm really sorry about what happened; I was just following orders!"
The Rabbi looks upwards with a puzzled look on his face.
The Nazi says, "What, what is it?"
The Rabbi grabs a heavy pewter pitcher and brains the Nazi with it.
The Bartender says to the Rabbi, "What was that for? I thought Rabbis were peaceful, and I'll have no trouble from anyone in my bar!"
The Rabbi looks upwards again, and tries to explain.
"I'm really sorry, I was just following orders!"
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Yahoo is based in the US, pays US taxes, operates according to US laws. Why should France have any say in suing Yahoo over activities that are legal in the country Yahoo is established? France should go after its own citizens for buying/browsing this stuff, if they are going to go after anyone. This would be like an American going to Amsterdam and buying illicit drugs and the US suing the drug dealer in Amsterdam! No, if you are going to fuss about it, go after the American who broke the law, not the drug dealer in Amsterdam who was following his country's laws.
If this holds up what's to stop small countries from using something like this as a monetary advantage? A small country quietly makes a law that it know a rich, American Internet company violates (say distributing pornographic pictures). They let the violation occur for a while, make a little fuss, but the Internet company doesn't do anything... then BAM, sue the company for millions.
This whole case shows two things:
</rant>
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
The way I understand it (and I'll try and get confirmation of this as soon as I can), is that it is illegal to make a _profit_ from anything Nazi related, or to promote the Nazi party.
Not at all. It's perfectly legal to make a profit from selling non offensive Nazi-related stuff (you can sell Mein Kampf with the proper disclaimer).
It's amazing how so many people specualte and give opinion when they obviously don't know shit about the topic.
The French government is not simply objecting to these items being sold to French citizens.
This is NOT about the French government. This is about a crappy jewish student union abusing the law and justice to get free publicity. Nowhere in this case did the govt intervene or comment. Some losers (UEJF) sued, the tribunal is hearing their request, there is no sentence yet, there is no govt intervention, there is not much actually yet.
ERR, maybe on a different planet, in a different galaxy, but there's not such thing that I'm aware of.
The indication I got from a lot of the reports I read is that it's not just promotion of articles relating to the Nazi Party but the exhibition, display or sale of any items relating to Nazism.
Then you understand it wrong. Look, this trial is stupid enough in itself, you don't have to add your own to it.
Did you realize that this entire article violates Godwin's Law?
It would depend which way the swastika points...
I have a photograph of an altar in Lapland (I'm part Finnish) which has two swastikas on it - pointing the same direction as the Nazi Harakrista. They're blue - the same colour as that used on Finnish miltary aircraft until the end of the Continuation War.
In the semi-pagan folklore that prevailed in Northern Europe until a few hundred years ago, the swastika was a symbol of the sun. It's unfortunate that it has become a symbol of hate for so many people.
Chris
I do have a file of all IP blocks corresponding to network located in France, extracted from the RIPE database. It's not based on DNS. Of course, there are perhaps a few networks located in France that are not in that file, but the vast majority of them is inside.
Turning that file into a filter is just a matter of programming (I have other things to do now, but I might do it soon if needs be).
It's possible to get a file containing all IP blocks registered by a French organization. Just extract it from the RIPE database. Proof: I did it.
French law prohibits promoting material that encourages racial hatred (and other crimes - for instance you cannot write in the press that a certain person should be murdered).
The reason why nazi paraphernalia is targeted like this is that most people do not like nazis parading. Let me explain a few things to you:
All this, admitted, happened because of the complicity of an ultraconservative puppet government put into place by the nazis.
Now you understand that when an holocaust survivor sees nazi stuff, he gets a bit nervous and wants it banned. Yes, there are some holocaust survivor still alive today. And many people feel the same way.
It happens too in the US. Several US criminals (take Ira Einhorn, for instance) have been sentenced to steep civil penalties so that they can't make money out of money or film deals. What is the reason? People do not want criminals to parade, nor do they want people to parade with instruments of crime.
Now, perhaps the injunction on Yahoo was clumsy (I think it is). But you can see it does come from very understandable human reasons.
No, but you can fight it by bringing skinheads out into the open and showing people how ridiculous and small-minded they really are. I recommend practicing that approach with every kind of fanatic, whether they be white supremacists, religious fanatics, or oppressive governments. Guess which one is looking silly in this case.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Except for the fact that you have private property. You have a social-welfare government, not a socialist government.
And British "free press" is seriously in doubt anyway, considering the Offical Secrets Act, no constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech, no written constitution period. But that's the difference between a subject and a citizen, I guess.
How about it didn't have anything to do with the war? Hey, Lincoln didn't even issue the Emancipation Proclamation until September, 1862.
Let's face it, the _expansion_ of slavery was the killer political issue. The northern states were overpopulated and lacked farmland. Opening the new territories to slavery meant huge plantations not little farms. Don't think for a minute that your typical white northerner cared a whit for slaves. Basically this issue devolved into a states-rights fight that turned into a shooting war. Slavery was an issue, but the issue was "How much?" not "Let's not".
Big-picture, I think the Marxists are right on this one. This really was a conflict about _economics_ (slave economy vs. capitalist economy) not how to love your fellow man.
Of course we still haven't solved the race issue in the US. Last I checked the NAACP was complaining about Jews. (I know, "..but Judaism is a religion, not a race" -- YOU explain it to the NAACP!)
Actually, the underpinning of freedom from government tyranny is private property. When the government can take things away at will (socialists call this "redistribution", everybody else calls it "confiscation") they can pretty easily deny you you're right to speak, since the means of communication are generally owned or dominated by the government who saw fit to confisicate, er, redistribute those items first.
As an intellectual exercise, name the leading free-press sources in socialist North Korea and Cuba. Now, do the same for the United States and Britain. Compare lists. Which is longer? Surprise! It's not the one from Havana and Pyongyang.
The only logical solutions are
- Repeal it as an unenforcable law
- Set up a national firewall like China
Anything else will just lead to more inconsistencies and hypocrisy. Because when you get right down to the bits, the entity that is transmitting the hate speech in France is some common-carrier router.---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
(Obvious rejoinder:) In America you don't seem to be taught much History. Hitler was not silenced and censored. He was put in prison, true, but that was for attempting to take power. He wrote Mein Kampf while in prison. The book was not censored until after the war; nor were his ideas or his party made illegal.
There is no law against "anti-semitism" in French. There is a law stating that it is illegal to deny the existence of a genocide. Now though I disagree with your arguments, I agree with the conclusion that such a law is utterly stupid, and, above all, very dangerous (it has given rise to a frightening witch hunt, and some genuine historians have been brought to justice because they had said certain things about the Armenian genocide, I think). There are also laws against discriminations in general, but nothing specific against anti-semitism; those laws I am rather in favor of.
As for "a country of people which hates all things not french", this is a gratuitous troll, and your post should have been moderated down for that if not for anything else.
there were no hypothetical questions?
No no no. That's someon's sig.
What if someone in Spain was using a loud speaker to auction off Nazi paraphenalia near the French border in such a way that the French people could hear? What would the judge do? He should do the same thing in this case.
What if someone from Amsterdam floated a hot-air balloon advertising certain adult services such that the picturesque advert could be seen from other countries where such pubi^Hlic displays were other-than-legal? What would the judge do then? He should do the same thing in this case.
If your country has laws that makes it illegal to see information then contact your leaders and inform them that they need to round up every person with access to the internet and throw them in jail. If there is also public access to the internet, then inform the leader that they need to round up everyone in the whole damn country, including themselves, and lock up the whole bunch. Stupid problems require stupid solutions afterall.
BTW, I do draw a distinction between having access to information and acting on it.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
The judicial branch of the US government made a ruling that ICraveTV was performing illegal acts even though it had no jurisdiction to say so and was completely legal in Canada.
-- iCEBaLM
A couple of important points:
1. This is about Yahoo!France, not Yahoo! and the difference is pointed out in another thread above.
2. The US, as pointed out in a previous post, has tried and convicted a person on criminal gambling charges even though the man and his business (and his servers) were all located in a country where gambling is legal.
However, the conclusions you draw are somewhat accurate. Other than a French fine of Yahoo! or taking Yahoo.fr out of their domain space, it does not look like France could really do anything to the parent company.
Also, you may have inadvertantly touched on the most effective way of shutting down a major web site such as Yahoo! If the French army invaded the corporate and technical offices of Yahoo! the administrative staff would be overwhealmed by the droves of surrendering French, unable to continue their duties the entire organization would grind to a hault from the bottom up.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
1. Anything like what france is doing is stupid.
2. what the American did was LEGAL where he did it so he should not be bothered.
3. anybody that thinks otherwise is probably a Fed that does not know jack about what freedom is all about
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Online bookie sentenced for offshore gambling site
Enjoy!
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
No, it is good for diffrent nations to have incompatable laws (not allowed to censor Nazis in the U.S., but required to censor Nazis in France) as this limits the multinationals and exposes people to diffrent laws and clutures. I'm saing that we do not want the internet to be governed seperatly from the countries.. we do not want the internet to be governed at all.. at least not in a traditional sence of the word, i.e. the powers to censor, tax, regulate, standardize, etc.
We want to internet to be governed by it's protocolls which we want to be developed by an academic style meritocrasy, i.e. that's cool lets write some programs which use that and see what happens. The internet needs no government.. only research and development.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I'm dutch, not french. but on the nazi-related stuff: in the netherlands 'Mein Kampf' in it's original form is outlawed. However.. an annotated version is NOT. Basically it has some views added from the other side(tm). It's not censored. The laws here are not against nazi-related, they are against Nazi-propaganda, and I wouldn't be surprised if french laws were something like that too.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I don't agree with either, but banning 'heil-hitler.de' (the URL that caused all the ruckus) makes more sense to me than banning stuff like microsof.com (no, I don't know whether it's a real case.. but it could be..)
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
saudi arabia just completely blocked all of yahoo for nudity.. btw.. selling marihuana over the web from amsterdam probably WILL get you arrested: marihuana in the netherlands is officially still a controlled substance. Only officially though ;)
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
What would it be illegal to stand on the border and shout into France?
Or, even more accurately, what would it be illegal to say over the telephone in France, regardless of where you are?
Or, yet more precisely, what would it be illegal for you to put as the outgoing message on your answering machine that anyone in France might call and hear?
Happy Premise #3: Even though I feel like I might ignite, I probably won't.
I had heard some of the people in the region still consider themselves occitan?
Yes and rightly so. France annexed the south of France in the 13th century. Occitania has always (and still is) much closer culturally speaking to Catalonia (i.e. Barcelona et. al) than the north of France. Unfortunately, in France, it seems only Paris count for something.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
It would depend which way the swastika points...
does it point the way of the Nazi, or does it point the way that Greek crosses as well as other religious symbols point?
Again, it also has to depend on the context of the item. A swastika is just a symbol, but if the symbol in question relates to the Nazi party, then that would be illegal
God, the number of clueless posts here is amazing. Here go a couple clues to work with people.
1) National laws apply when a crime is commited inside of nation.
2) The only way the internet can affect a national law is if the transaction occurs across national boundaries.
3) If you're going to do international transactions you have to obey all applicable laws for each nation involved.
My personal opinion is that if Yahoo can't work with French laws, then they shouldn't have any business dealings there.
Secondly I think it's obvious that E-Commerce sites like are going to have to implement a form territory restrictions to ensure that they don't sell material which is banned in certain territories. This is not that big a deal, these companies need to respect the law of whatever country the customer is in.
--
Be insightful. If you can't be insightful, be informative.
If you can't be informative, use my name
Be insightful. If you can't be insightful, be informative.
If you can't be informative, use my name
It doesn't matter where the servers are. Doing business with someone while they are on French soil brings on French jurisdiction. It's the same reason why someone in Minnesota who gambles with an offshore internet casino is still breaking Minnesota law.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Here are some interesting links talking about the issue.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
So? We're talking about jurisdiction relating to international transactions taking place via the Internet - not whether the law itself is stupid. Like another poster noted, the situation is similar to that of offshore Internet gambling.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
In this case, Yahoo! will have an interesting decision to make. They can
get rid of Nazi-related auctions,
get rid of French users, or
come up a means to prevent French users from accessing Nazi auctions.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
The technology to block French users from the US based Yahoo is not just "immature".. it's flat out impossible.
The only good sign is that the French judge may, like his American counterparts, eventually "get it" and leave foreign sites alone.
Whether it is "right or wrong" or not I wear an SS belt buckle in remembrance of him.
It's right for the reason you do it, but it's wrong because it can offend someone whose father was shot in the back of the neck by an SS man, while laying on the ground of a pit he was forced to dig.
Censorship on Slashdot
My point wasn't that the purpose of the civil war was to end slavery, but that abolition was a direct result anyway. Lincoln made it clear that he'd rather keep the union together than end slavery; the emancipation proclamation occurred when it was obvious that there was no peaceful way to do this.
Of course we still haven't solved the race issue in the US. Last I checked the NAACP was complaining about Jews.
This is something I've never heard of. Could you provide a source for this information? Not only was one of the NAACP's founders Jewish, but the organization was one of the few American groups that spoke out against the Nazi treatment of Jews during the early years of their persecution.
--
Yahoo!'s French site, www.fr.yahoo.com, currently offers no Nazi memorabilia...
To an extent, I think they do. What if someone in Amsterdam were to post an ounce of marijuana on eBay? It would get taken down, because it's not legal to sell here. We're obviously respecting US laws. Now, granted, the French are pretty silly - but they *may* have a legitimate gripe about having their laws respected.
PS -- Just kidding about that silly French remark.. :)
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
One rather successfull tactic in combating the power of these oppressive symbols (And amongst alot of sociologists and psychologists there is agreement that symbols can really disturb people), is to reconfigure them.
Take the word 'bitch'. Traditionally it's kinda signified 'stupid bad woman'. But a lot of women have been using it to mean 'powerfull woman'. Ie my sisters proclaimation that she is 100% bitch and proud. The same thing applies to the word 'n*gger'. Many afro-americans have been using it in a non derogatory way. It's reclaiming the signifier, and saying 'screw you-- this word is mine now'. It's also a type of pointer math.
The problem is however, that while a swatstika did indeed mean 'peace' to budhists many moons ago, it now means 'naziism' to most people.Trying to dislodge the signified and reconfiguring this has a grave danger of leaving no pointers to the fact of nazi horror, and before long histories little 'java garbage collector' is gonna come along and we'll forget one of the most important lessons of the last 100 years.. That is, that extreme (maybe all) right wing politics can lead to absolute horror.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
That's the worst solution I've ever heard.
Personally, I think one government is inadequate even for a single nation. Remember those medical marijuana bills in the U.S. that passed by an *astounding margin* (like 75-25, which is almost never seen, and beat school bonds) in Nevada, Alaska, New Mexico, Arizona, Hawaii, Oregon, and (I think) 3 more states? They were all in the West.
Personally, I wish every day that the Union had lost the civil war, and we had three nations - the North, South, and West.
To those of you who are British, I'd like to ask - despite all the really ugly wars you had throughout this century, do you really think it would be better to have been sharing a government with France and Germany all along?
As for the internet, it needs to be strictly controlled for abuse (I wouldn't mind Interpol hunting down spammers and script kiddies, yanking their 'net connections, and putting them on "don't use a computer or you'll be seeing prison time" parole for, say, five years), and completely free in terms of content. Local governments should decide whether they want their citizens to have access to things that are completely free in terms of content. If France doesn't like Nazi material on the internet, it should just cut all the cables going to the country. In my mind, it's that simple.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
IIRC, several years ago an American who had set up a white supremicist neo-nazi website went on vacation to Norway (I believe) where he was immediately arrested and deported to Germany, where any nazi or neo-nazi propaganda is illegal. The American was tried and convicted and had to do jail time. The U.S. government did not intervene.
What does this mean for Yahoo? The French government has no legal authority to require Yahoo to remove any material from any US-based servers. However, the French authorities have every right to arrest, try and convict the Yahoos responsible, should they set foot in France. Due to European extridition agreements, Yahoo execs (Jerry Yang comes to mind) would be well advised to avoid that European vacation.
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Something cleverWow! My very own imposter! I'm impressed (not).
Well, I have no need of another account... why were you posting what you were posting? You weren't doing what other imposters tend to do... you were just posting (if a bit inane) normal stuff.
Since when is it my responsibility as an entity of a seperate state to uphold and obey the laws of another state? I am very interested in the official response from Yahoo.
Yes, they will give in and compromise with the French, and everything will be lovey-dovey with both Yahoo and the government of France. But my question is, "Why?"
Why is compromise the first thing that both business and government (or organization and government, in the case of most special-interest groups) look to when they clash on any particular topic?
Why can't someone of some stature just stand up and say, "Hell no I won't do that, it goes against everything I stand for!"
I'm awaiting the CEO, President, or celebrity that does just such a thing, and planning on backing them 100% despite my opinion of what the situation is.
I would have backed Lars with his stand against Napster if he wouldn't have stood behind the RIAA and requested government action.
I would have backed PETA if they wouldn't have called on the government to make a decision regarding the removal of an offensive website.
I would have backed Netscape, Sun, and even possibly AOL, but they continue to hide behind the judicial system, and promote fear, uncertainity, and doubt about what a world without them would be like.
I'd like to challenge big business, big interest groups, and big people altogether to try something new: Don't take the easy way out. Nowadays, getting the government involved is the wimp's way of handling a problem.
Not to mention how much all this "governement" involvement is making us the piss at the bottom of the gutter. The difference between myself and the rest of the accumulation is that I know I'm nothing.
For the first time in world history, all humans exist under a government in which not a single person reading this message had any involvement in creating.
For United States citizens, it is our money and our troops being used by foreign countries irresponsibily and without reason.
For other countries, it is those damn Yanks with their freaking "pop culture" and liberal views corrupting society.
The only solution is for the US to drop support of the UN.
US: No problem
Other countries: You can't do that!
I would like to see a President who would. Unfortunately, Bush isn't the one who would do it. I'm not an isolationist, just someone who notices that the current situation is getting us nowhere, so we need to rethink it.
And to answer a previous poster's question:
If someone wanted to put a kilo of Mary Jane on Ebay, and it was illegal here, Ebay would be required under US law to stop the auction.
If someone wanted to put a kilo of Mary Jane on an Amsterdam auction, and the US didn't like it, the US can shove it and forget about the whole deal.
I don't see what is so complicated about it. If someone is doing something I don't like, I have the ability to speak, to request, to announce, and to plead.
If after that they still want to do it, I should mind my own fscking business and go about my life.
It doesn't get any simpler than that.
about freedom of speech, is that everyone is all for it as long as its speech that does not upset them..
I say you dont make ugly problems like facism go away by trying to hide them in the dark - Shine the light on them and expose them for what they are. Stupid.
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Vices - what I lack in originality, I make up for in volume.
It is similar to laws regarding nudity in content accessible by children in the US, which, by European standards, are strict to the point of being absurd.
The reason that these kinds of laws exist in Europe is that not only that a lot people who are old enough have suffered from the consequences of racism/national socialism, but also that for the European democracies as they exist after the war, the very reason of existance is related directly to WWII and its horrors.
Especially since the 1960s the moral framework and justification for democracy and European integration has racism and national socialism as a negative reference point. Anything that condones these ideologies is by definition an attack on the European democracies, hence the zealousness with which they are fought within the bounds allowable by a normal democracy
Of course there are grey areas but they are much the same as with the decency laws, you are right in that they are the price of curtailing freedom of speech in a certain direction, but it's a question of priorities. Sander
But fascism by court decree...
I wish Europe would get over this awful era. I've got some nifty items which bear swastikas, which were made at least 100 years before WWII. Would I have to accompany these with some french certificate before selling on Yahoo?
Vote Naked 2000
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I am perpetually amazed with Europe's ability to repeat the mistakes of the past. Hitler was silenced and censored before, but unfortunately this did not work. It did not stop Hitler then, and it would not stop a new Hitler now.
The reason for this is that if you cannot reach Point B from a point A that does not exist. If you allow Hate Groups to speak without government interference, then others will have reason to speak and rally against them. That is, the French should not need the help of their government to understand why Anti-Semitism and racism is ridiculious and wrong. I do not believe it is a concidence that there is a law against anti-semitism in a country of people which hates all things not french.
To elaborate, it is very possible that the very existance of these laws against anti-semitism creates anti-semitism by virtue of it's distrust of the morality and sensibility of the peoples it is enforced upon.
In america, we've always felt that Anti-Semetics and racists make themselves look like idiots without help from the government or anyone for that matter. Should Europe choose to continue this trend of censorship, I fully expect Europe to see a new Hitler.
-[ Shanoyu - wtr - planetmofo.com ]-
Heh. Some would argue that the purpose of Second Ammendment is to give the citizens the means to stand up against the government, should they ever need to defend themselves from it or even overthrow it. That doesn't sound like too much of a far-fetched interpretation either, given the times that it was written.
But if one interprets the right to bear arms in that way, then it would include things like tanks, helicopters, and -- good grief -- tactical nukes.
As you can imagine, no one (including me) wants the Montana Freemen to have nukes, so there's a strong incentive for not interpreting the ammendment in this manner, regardless of whether that was its original intent or not.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
This is actually a good sign. The judge has asked for more technical details. Hopefuly it can be pointed out to him the problems.
1) French law makes it illegal to promote items relating to the Nazi party [0], making it illegal for Yahoo to auction nazi items in France.
2) American consitution makes it illegal for Yahoo to be forced to stop (under free speech).
3) Yahoo.fr has pulled the specified aution pages, but french people can still see them at yahoo.com.
So the judge is probably [1] weighing up whether it is a greater wrong to allow some french people to seem these items, or to attempt to force Yahoo to block the french.
One interesting point is that I don't belive [2] that the judge can specify technical details of implementation, just "pull it" or "you can leave it". If he decided to pull it, then Yahoo either have to block *.fr, or a list of all french IP addresses.
The formar is possable, but not complete, the latter is complete, but probably not possable. And let's not start on proxies.
All in all, I think it's good that the judge reailiese that there are technical issues, and is looking into them.
[0] Probably a little excessive, but that's beyond the scope here.
[1] And this is only my opinion
[2] IANAL
Well the deal here is that because the US thinks it controls the world, it also thinks its laws apply to the entire world, so the judicial branch of the US government thinks it applies to the entire world, regardless of reality.
Case in point: ICraveTV, Jon Johansen.
-- iCEBaLM
Perhaps a better solution would be for all French users to register with the goverment, so that Yahoo could block their IPs.
A better solution would be for the French government to find a way to prevent French citizens from reaching those sites domestically. They should not be trying to force a company in a different country to enforce their own national laws. Yahoo has abided by their laws on their site which was created for the French. The servers for the site in question is not in France. If the French government wants their citizens banned from accessing content on them, then it's the French government's problem, not Yahoo's. If the French can't block the user's domestically, then they should be able to approach Yahoo and see if Yahoo would be willing to implement some method of blocking their users, but the government better be willing to pay for it.
The French government seems to have a problem understanding other countries don't have to enforce their domestic laws for them. Our government here in the United States also suffers from this delusion from time to time.
If the French government can't deal with this then Yahoo should probably sell their French assets. If they don't have any assets in France, there's probably not much the French government can do if Yahoo choses not to comply with their wishes. If the French govenment doesn't want to play nice, then let them play by themselves.
Disclaimer : I am a French Jew and I live in the US for about 2 years now.
There are several points one needs to think about when you read this whole Yahoo-French story. Let me try to explain them one by one. Some of the points I will discuss have been brought up by Lionel Jospin, French Prime Minister regarding this very story with Yahoo. I really want to emphasize the fact that I am not trying to put my opinion in place, I just want to explain how come the Frenchs can do that.
First, France has been invaded by the Nazi's. When you get the enemy on your land, it leaves pain for a long long time. The Frenchs are still wounded by the war. Far worst than the US.
Second, You guys see that story from an American Point of Vue (point de vue in French). The USA is the country of Freedom, Liberty, the right for everyone to be armed, etc... The US have a much stronger "I have the right to do and say whatever I want as long as I don't mess up with what my neighbor thinks or wants" than the French. You want an example? Look at the topic this story has been put into : censorship. For an American, this whole thing is considered as censorship, as someone trying to keep someone else from expressing his/her thoughts. In France, things are a little bit different. Taboos are not the same. Here, sex in the worplace is taboo (Lewinski affair.), in France Nazi stuff is taboo.
Third : The French's in general, especially the french government have no clue what the Internet is about. The don't get the whole picture. They want to translate CD-ROM with cederom. Email -> mel. Does it make sense ? Of course ... since they don't get it. They see the Internet as something new, frightening, that is going to eliminate their culture and they don't really like it. 15% - 20% of the houses in France have access to the Internet. This can explain that.
When they issue some ruling like this one, they are misinformed. They think that technicaly Yahoo can filter French people with 95% accuracy. Well, I am a Network Engineer, and I am wondering how they are going to do that with 95% accuracy. Who tells them that? Looooonnnnnggg story. For more info, look for keywords like polytechnique, Ecole Normale d'Administration (ENA), etc. The Elites in France are the one reponsible for that mess.
I hope this will help you understand why and how they came to that point. Cultural differences are a value in this world (especially my accent with women :) ). It's just a matter of getting the information.
If you read that and wonder what I think of all this, you came to the wrong place. I hate the Frenchs! (there was a song like that somewhere)
Cheers!
Looking for a great online backup: Green Backup
how do national laws apply to the Internet?
Maybe its best that they didn't. Its nearly impossible for a website about even normal things to follow all the laws out there. Are we to try to block all accsess to all those websites about fishing, nature, etc., because they make some wussy 30 sq. mi. country in Europe mad?
Let the Internet be governed seperatly from the rest of the world. The only trubble is keeping control of that government away from greedy corperatists. They can have their say, of course, which is only fair. However, they should not control it the way the control the US government today.
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Not a typewriter
> In the French case the official line is to try
> and obscure their collaboration in the Holocaust
> by emphasising the (negligible) role of the
> Resistance.
I'm sorry, but this is just 100% wrong. The French are _obsessed_ with their past when it comes to the collaboration. Indeed, just after the war, they tried to obscure these memories, and, in this hysterical climate, they conducted huge trials where collaborators were hastly and severely condemned.
Today, things have changed. Most of our philosophers, historians, intellectuals, and even lawyers, are looking back at this period, trying to explain, understand ans accurately determine how things worked. Even Papon, who was a minister in the Gaullist government in the 60's, has been judged and condemned 3 or 4 years ago, and is now in jail.
The National Front has built itself on these trauma, this lost confidence, this complex of inferiority that the French seem to cultivate sometimes without any reason. However, its electoral score never went beyond 15%, and has strongly declined during the last years.
I feel sorry for the French. They have tried valiantly to secure their way of life. Everything from trying to limit the inclusion of english words into their lexicon (email, for example) to controlling the ratio of english to french content on french web sites.
The Internet is going to change that. And I wonder how the French will handle their loss of control. There early responses don't bode well.
I respect the French people and admire their culture. I seriously wonder, however, whether it has a future.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
It's an age-old debate. How do national laws apply to the internet? They don't. Will they be made to do so? Without a doubt.
How can an entity comprised of information be governed by a system based on the physical? How can geographic governments rule what is not geographic? As far as information is concerned, and commerce to that extent, geography is essentially obsolete.
Take a look at this old article from the US Treasury that touches on the subject of geography's irrelevance. The relevant question is, how do we convey to stodgy legislators the essential freedom from barriers that earmarks communication today?
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"The Constitution...is not a suicide pact."
"Life. Don't talk to me about life."
But fascism by court decree...
I wish Europe would get over this awful era. I've got some nifty items which bear swastikas, which were made at least 100 years before WWII. Would I have to accompany these with some french certificate before selling on Yahoo?
I agree that the outright rejection of a symbol is a form of fascism, including the Confederate flag dispute in South Carolina... The pre-Nazi swastikas had a different connotation; the swastika (backwards from the Nazi one) is a Buddhist symbol, among other things. Certainly, measures against fascism that employ its very means (book burning, and other limits to free thought, etc.) are foolish and short-sighted; it would definitely be missing the forest for the trees, to use the cliche.
But it is naive to say that Europe should "get over it" in reference (even by symbolic proxy) to the holocaust. Nobody should "get over it"; it should be a part of our collective human conscious for all eternity as a reminder of the barbarism that we are capable of. Particularly when we let others decide our thoughts and morals and ethics.
It's a pretty interesting debate - how do national laws apply to the Internet?
The New York Times (free registration required) is reporting here that a man has been convicted for operating an internet gambling business that took bets from Americans. I would never have predicted this outcome, since he estabished the business in Antigua (where it's legal) and was himself out of the country when the bets were taken. If he weren't an American citizen, I don't believe he could have been prosecuted. I find this ruling disturbing, since it implies that one can be prosecuted according to the laws of one's home country, even if one's activities are legal where they take place. I'm hoping this ruling is overturned, as it's completely wrong, IMO. Using this logic, some despotic regime would be within its rights to prosecute its citizens for criticizing it while in the U.S.
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
My grandfather fought in the Russo-Finnish Winter War (1939-1940), and later volunteered to serve in the SS for roughly two years. After his contract was finished, he returned to Finland having fought extensively on the Eastern Front. He then reentered the Finnish armed forces, until he was demobilised in 1944.
He volunteered for the SS because he wanted to a chance to fight the Russians, who he blamed for the loss of his home city Viipuri. I was in total awe of my grandfather as a child, although he never mentioned his wartime experiences. In fact the only time he ever alluded to it was when he expressed disgust at how the American film industry often portrays Axis soldiers.
Now my grandfather is dead, all I have to remember him by is my memories. Whether it is "right or wrong" or not I wear an SS belt buckle in remembrance of him. This doesn't make me a Nazi - I vote Liberal, my flatmate is Jewish and my girlfriend is French.
I don't know what I'm trying to say here - perhaps it's just that the victors in any war are able to write their own version of history. In the French case the official line is to try and obscure their collaboration in the Holocaust by emphasising the (negligible) role of the Resistance. I find this as offensive as German skinheads, so I can't help feeling that this court case smacks of hypocrisy. Perhaps the French should come to terms with their own past (and present in the case of their National Front) before trying to censure what their citizens can and can't do on the Internet.
Chris
There are three very different questions at stake here, and most posts I see seem to mix them all randomly.
First, there is the question of how appropriate this French law is, that forbids the sale of Nazi items. Personally, I think it's a very stupid law. However, please mind when discussing this question that it is unrelated to the Internet, and also that we're talking French law. So the question should be discussed in that context. In fact, I don't think Slashdot is a very appropriate place to discuss that question (yet most posts I see which make any sense refer specifically to that question).
Second, there is the question of the applicability of the law of a certain country to a web site that is not located in that country. Personally, I think it shouldn't apply. However, please note in discussing that question that the nature of the law (good or bad) should not be a factor. Nor should the name of the country. If we agree that the good laws of the United States should apply to non-US sites on the net, then the evil laws of Western Turumumbolia (some obscure country you've never heard of) should apply just the same.
Third, there is the purely technical question of whether Yahoo! can, in fact, filter out (nearly all) French users from their site. And the answer, I think, is yes, it is technically possible. A friend of mine has downloaded the list of all IP blocks for France from the RIPE database: there are a little over 20000, and it would be a fairly simple hashtable lookup to filter them. We're working on a proof of concept. (Even though I must repeat that I disapprove of the use of the filtering. But that is an entirely different question, in fact two entirely different questions as I've just explained.) This would not filter all French users, but with a reasonable approximation it would.
Also, I do wish we had a little less gratuitous France-bashing and gallophobia around. Certainly we have a case of an absurd law, here, but every country has absurd laws, this is not news (I did not see much americanophobia surface every time the DMCA was mentioned, for example). More importantly, the France-bashing in question is utterly offtopic (relevant to none of the three questions I mentioned) and irrelevant (not to mention, a troll and flamebait to some extent).
One of the problems with enforcing a law like this is determining when to stop enforcing it. Case in point: What constitutes a "Nazi-related" item? There are some obvious examples that everybody would probably agree on .. for example, an authentic Swastika flag used by the Third Reich would doubtless be classified as Nazi-related.
However, what about something like Hitler's book Mein Kampf? Is it Nazi-related? Inasmuch as the book is about his youth and his early days in the Nazi party, the answer would probably be "yes." But does it fall under the same general category as general Nazi memorabilia such as flags, silverware, etc.? The book arguably has some value to society because it serves as a window into the soul of one of the sickest, vilest human beings ever to walk the planet. You can't effectively battle what you don't understand, and so you might make the case that the book's intimate portrait of Hitler's mindset and thought processes are more important than its objectionable content.
What about Raiders of the Lost Ark? Is it Nazi-related?
The problem here is no different than it is any other time a government or group attempts to censor or "protect" its citizens/constituents from material that it deems harmful, offensive, or dangerous. "Harmful, offensive, and dangerous" are not black-and-white litmus tests that can be applied equally in all situations. When a government or group takes it upon itself to decide what people can see/say/read/etc., they are engaging in the intellectual equivalent of book-burning. Ironically, the Nazis were very much into book-burning.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground