Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Judge To Hear Yahoo! Web-Blocking Case
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.
I don't understand why this is even a question. If Yahoo! has actual infrastructure (employees, office space, hosting...) in France, that's one question.
But if not, why doesn't Yahoo! just say "screw the French"? Anything else would produce "shopping for laws" as RMS put it. Just wait until Joe Blow dicovers that his favorite US pr0n site has been shut down on authority of Saudi Arabian decency laws.
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. It's not hard to see this being the ultimate result - That already seems to be the case wrt other products: for example, suppose as a citizen of Foobonia I own and operate a widget factory within Foobonia, and want to sell widgets in both the US and a state that the US has placed restrictions against (eg Cuba). The US government won't permit that - why the US government thinks it has the right to tell me who I can sell widgets to, beats me ... but that's the way it is, though.
I am going to ram my entire foot up this cocksucker's ass! Come here judgey judgey! I have some justice to dispense yousomofabitch! I am going to take a stail loaf of French bread and assfuck you with it you dicksomker! Come here and eat a piece of American justice! Yousomofabitch! Keep your French laws where they belong, and I will hope that they keep our laws where they belong. If not, I will keep my foot where it belongs; up your holier-then-thou ass!
This cups on me!
yah, nazi's suck. Unfortunately, they are a part of history, and history is something you cannot sweep under a rug. As objectionable as this content is, it is historic.
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.
- A.P.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
FWIW, it seems as though yahoo.fr is served from London, along with the rest of Yahoo's european operations.
I hope the judge considers the profound legal implications of Godwin's Law in his decision.
Umm, wrong. The US didn't supply Germany and Japan with war materials. I don't know where you get your history. I suggest you quit making shit up as you go along. The US was supplying WWI vintage equipment to England (mostly destroyers, munitions, etc.). England would NOT have lasted for long if we had not been supplying them. The merchants daring German U-boat infested waters were just as courageous as the people on the front line. Many men lost their lives delivering equipment and supplies to the English before the formal declaration of war.
--
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
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.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
(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.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Yeah, for example, before the wars the swastika was the symbol of Finnish Air Force. I found it strange that some American online flight sim maker (can't remember which) wanted to use the FAF's modern symbol (just circles) on historical planes...
Why is it you call it the land of the FREE when you're bound by such idiotic laws, EVEN when travelling abroad?
but Yahoo! was NOT FORCED to remove NAZI stuff from US sites, THEY MADE THE CHOICE to for fear of offending all those CONSUMERS in France. If they did not like the ruling they could have simply done what you or I would do and not DO BUSINESS with the French. I am not even going to begin to voice my RAMPANT ANTI-FRENCH sentiment, because no matter how justified, this is NOT the place :)
After reading some about the Hague Treaty there is a stipulation that if local laws permit the behavior then foreign enforcement is dis-allowed. Now we will see how the constitution and our BILL of RIGHTS really holds up...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Here's a market reality for you: Yahoo auctions probably gets more benefit from cancelling Nazi-memorabilia auctions and holding onto the French market than from cutting off the French and holding onto the Nazi memorabilia market. If those were the two choices, I'm confident that Yahoo would be unwilling to sacrifice profitability just to make a gesture about free speech, because as it is Yahoo isn't about free speech anyway.
The German's did indeed go around the Maginot Line - they went through the Ardennes Forest (in Belgium) which was widely believed to be impassable to large armourd formation. It wasn't.
Paratroopers were used to help capture Belgian fortifications to pave the way for another avenue of assault. Landing on a fortress in a glider isn'y my idea of a fun afternoon, although it would make a great Half Life mod.
The really funny thing about the Maginot Line is that after the Germans isolated it's defenders, they pushed an infantry assault through the Line - albeit only when the battle for France was mostly over anyway.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Freedom of speech is absolute. There are currently no limits to what you can say with your mouth, except that you can't slander or libel someone. If you're telling the truth, it's not slander or libel. Also, obscene speech is not protected. Indecent speech IS protected.
Child porn is obscene, and therefore is not protected.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
In the little town in Appalachia where I grew up there is a building made, I think, in the 30's with a band of swastica's all around it. I don't recall anyone ever making a big stink about it, but then it was in a pretty obscure, poorer part of town and you never heard much about it except for a few high school friends - "Hey, there's a building with swasticas all over it! Lets go look" and we'd drive by and look and then life went on as usual.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
If somebody has a problem with web content, let them solve it the simplest way possible, unplug.
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.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Imagine some banana republic sets up a data haven and says, kiddie porn isn't illegal in Gamboonia.
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.
-
I think the banana republic is the US government which cares more about kiddie porn than about kids going hungry. Lets get the priorities straight!
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.
-
Maybe those conspiracy theorists weren't so far off base after all.
--
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Wasn't that how we were supposed to stop SPAM? It doesn't seem to be working. I suspect that this wouldn't work either.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
What Yahoo should do is go to the WTO and challenge France's laws as being a barier to free-trade.
But really... I've always wondered why we have all these different states in America. Soon, with every company having to obey every countries laws, there'll become the point of wondering what the point of countries even are, except for their historical signicances...
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!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
France has NO business telling an american company what it can do for a business practice
They're not. They're telling a French subsidiary of an American company, as well as the company itself, that to do business in France they must comply with the business laws of France. They don't have to obey French laws if they don't do business in France.
This is first semester international business and the more Yahoo complains the more Americans look like arrogant idiots.
---------------------------------------------
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Any business doing business in a country is bound by the laws of that country.
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.
---------------------------------------------
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Perhaps there is a case for the US saying "We invented the internet, everyone on it is subject to our commercial laws, otherwise we'll shut down your connections!"
Then wait for the howls of outrage!!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
They'll enforce it with a request to the State Dept. to have federal law enforcement go to the physical site and confiscate the servers. State submits the request to the Fed. courts, gets a siezure warrant, and presto-bingo, you got no hardware.
Next.
"...they may harpoon us, but they ain't gonna pick us up on no radar screen!"
This is exactly the kind of bullshit the better elements of Seattle and Montreal protests were against...
--
--
Victor Danilchenko
Maby so, but it is illigal in your country, and your country has the ability to make such laws. You can either follow the law, break the law and risk getting caught, or take it to court.
If the movie industry didn't get the DMCA passed, I wouldn't care about CSS or region coding at all...
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.
Oh yawn, can't you think of something better than beating the dead horse of child-pornography?
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.
This solution would have been just fine by the court, but Yahoo decided it was easier/better to just ban the objects. The French court _never_ ordered the ban, it ordered that nazi objects not be visible by French visitors.
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?
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.
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.
Babies are cute because they have to be.
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.
You might want to read up on what the US is trying to enforce on foreign companies daring to make business with Cuba.
/ol
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.
I don't get why Communist stuff can be sold and Nazi stuff can't.
Because the French were spineless cowards that collaborated with the Nazis to save their own skins, and they're embarrassed by that fact. This is harsh, but entirely true.
At the beginning of the war, France had more planes, more tanks, more of just about everything than Germany. They lost because they're morons when it comes to strategy (Maginot Line! Great idea! Let's build half a wall and hope they don't go around!), and because they just outright surrendured (Vichy, etc.).
Oh sure, if Yahoo lost, your privacy would be better protected at Amazon. The only problem is book prices would double, since Amazon's legal department would have to increase in size 10-fold to ensure they complied with every country's laws. Plus, Amazon wouldn't be able to sell you anything not approved by the Vatican, the Taliban, and the PRC government. In other words, Amazon would be reduced to selling math textbooks at even higher prices than the average campus bookstore.
Or maybe they just wouldn't sell you books.
DVD Region Encoding is about letting a company control the marketing, distrubution, and use of its own products. The Yahoo/France case is about a foreign government trying to control a company outside its borders. They're entirely different.
IMHO, there's nothing morally wrong with DVD Region Encoding, but it shouldn't be illegal to defeat it.
I got modded down because I said mean things (that were entirely true) about the French for collaborating with the Nazis. Come on, people. What's next, are people who condemn the holocaust going to be modded as "Flamebait" because they might upset neo-Nazis?
To the spineless moderator: fuck you, I'm still at the karma cap.
This is probably the most significant online-freedom case, ever. Sure, it's about a company selling Nazi crap, not some hackers trying to [insert DeCSS/reverse engineering/etc here], but don't let that fool you.
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 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.
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.
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.
If the French court can sue yahoo to block Nazi-related content, why couldn't Saudi Arabia or Iran sue to block moraly subversive content?
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.
If I'm a company with a branch in the US, does that mean that my home branch has to comply with US encryption laws?
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.
France has NO business telling an american company what it can do for a business practice,
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.
Well, the issue here is whether France can exercise jurisdiction over content that is substantially NOT within France (yahoo.com as opposed to yahoo.fr).
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.
The French courts ARE overstepping their bounds.
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.
The US courts then deem that this was a violation of their Consitutional right to free speech, and the French government have no right to tell US citizens what they can or cannot say.
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"...
Yahoo has a physical business presence in France. As such, their business must abide by French laws.
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.
The laws of the United States do not apply to the United States citizen while in another country - the laws present in the country you are apply to you
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.
Take this hypothetical scenario: Ford has car dealerships in France and the U.S.. France has a law requiring all vehicles sold to French citizens get a certain gas mileage. The Ford Excursion (naturally) fails to meet these requirements. The Ford Excursion is not sold in French dealerships, but is sold in the US. Should the French government be able to force Ford's U.S. dealerships to check each buyer's proof of citizenship because a French citizen can theoretically call a Ford dealership in the U.S., buy an Excursion over the phone, and have it shipped to France? I sure don't think so.
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!
I was arguing the reach of a French government's jurisdiction action
They are saying what can and can't be done in France Where is there even a question about jurisdiction?
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 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.
Want to do business in a country? Guess what, you'll have to comply with the local laws. If the local laws are such that a company cannot abide them they have only a few choices. Alter their business plan to comply with the local regulation, get the local regulation changed, or simply cease doing business in that county. Sounds like Yahoo is running into a situation where the third is the only viable option.
Except that the original judgment offered them a way to do the first.
We have mail-order companies that sell anything from firearms to car parts that are illegal in some states and legal in others. The buyer is responsible for knowing their laws and not ordering items if they are in a state which doesn't allow them. The cataogs will sometimes say "Not available in CA, VA, etc." and may refuse to ship to some states, but the responsibility falls squarely on the reader.
Could a US state demmand that such "Not available" tags were included?
A French judge has absolutly no jurisdiction over ANYTHING on US soil.
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.)
And they don't want it to be sold to their country. They don't care about americans trading among themselves
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.
So, what is your attitude when the US government tries to tell Canadian retailers they're not allowed to sell Cuban-made clothing ?
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".
Yahoo auctions probably gets more benefit from cancelling Nazi-memorabilia auctions and holding onto the French market than from cutting off the French and holding onto the Nazi memorabilia market.
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.
There was a web site called icravetv.com. This Canadian site, on Canadian servers, in Canada was shut down because of U.S. courts. They rebroadcasted television stations live over the internet. You saw the shows in their entirety, including commercials. In Canada this is legal. However a US Court shut it down because it is illegal in the states.
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.
The French court did not asked Yahoo! to remove nazis auctions from Yahoo.com, they asked Yahoo! to block French citizens' access to the items. Whether or not, this is easy is another issue. IMHO, a warning on the auction page that alerts French citizens that they should not view the pages would be enough
The reason this was suggested is that yahoo! made a fuss about it being possible to target banner ads geographically.
To clear up a point: There were two incarnations of the Swastika, the right-handed swastika, ancient symbol of goodness and light, and the left-handed swastika, Nazi symbol, reversed right-handed symbol, and one of the reasons Hitler was believed to have been involved in Satanism.
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.
Bzzzzzt..."AAAAaaaaarrrgh!!!" Thud.
"Child pornography" laws should (IMO) be about the harm it does the child, and nothing else. Is that all they really are? No. But from a strict harm standpoint, there can be no "free speech" argument to justify it. It's one thing to say something, take pictures of something, paint something, it's another to cause harm to another.
IMO, there should be no limits on "free speech" when there is no harm to other humans.
(Note: My use of harm is open to interpretation, but the idea is that it must be "direct", which I could describe in more detail, but won't.)
One last point. I agree with the idea that only people who have lost the battle of ideas or fear they will lose have a need to censor.
"Why should I be content to simply live in this world, when I, as a human being, can CREATE it?" - Oertel
Oh, wait, with Bush in the whitehouse, the US will become the favorite toxic waste dump for the world :-)
Nope. That's what everyone is trying to use Australia for, not the US. After all what is all that desert good for anyhow?
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
Yes, and forbidding the sale of these items cures these people of their problems, just turns them into docile bunnies. It is well-documented, somewhere, I am just sure of it!
--
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Because there are so many Communists floating around there still. There was no de-communization done anywhere.
The furor that _The Black Book of Communism_ raised is because it dared to document the crimes of Communism (the subtitle of the book is "Crimes, Repression, Terror"), and ask the question: "Why are Nazis so (justifiably) vilified for their crimes, but Communists are not? Especially since the communists exterminated rather indiscriminately, too, and much more prolifically. All the French Communists just about had a cow apiece.
--
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
And I wasn't really on your case, more on France's.
--
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
My take is that a crime which crosses an international boundary should result in two trials and two punishments. Similar to military personal and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, where its not double jepordy to be tried for an act in civilian courts, punished, and then when released to be court martialed (for a different crime, yet the same act). If it had to be one or the other, I'd say try them in the US. The discharge of a weapon occured in Canada, but the unlawful death occured in the US.
If your server was in china, *that* server would have to be operated in compliance with Chinese law. Operating a server in China shouldn't mean that China's contract laws effect a contract you draw up in Germany regarding a server you will operate in Germany. Could the French stop a physical auction on US soil because French citizens attended?
Since the mainstream US media outlets don't seem to cover this story very well, its time to add a few facts to the discussion.
:-)
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
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
And there are undoubtedly many state laws in which the 1st ammendment wasn't the highest priority.
--
Many types of gambling are illegal in the US, so companies move their servers offshore to countries that have unrestricted gambling.
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 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.
Um. I'm no expert in international laws or anything, but i would have thought the right to free speech would apply in this case(?)
The way I see it (and I'm in New Zealand btw), is that if it is owned/hosted in the USA, then the frogs can't do a thing about it. Obviously this isn't the case, but I reckon that sux - i mean, where do you draw the line?
(sure, it's about dodgy nazi organisation sites, but surely yahoo has a right to publish links to any legal sites right?)
Nevrar
Yes, and yahoo removed the items from those servers. They should not have been forced to do so with the us servers.
Don't just cut France. Instead, put a redirect so that anyone connecting from France goes to a simple page with a message that reads something like this:
Your government has decided that we can not display all of our content from this web page. We have found that we can not realisticly comply with thier edicts, and therefore must prevent your access.
If you have questions, please contact or .
Let the ppl of that country force the change. Remember France's last(?) revolution? Heads rolled, literally. (IANAHistoran)
WHONEEDSSLEEPWHENWEHAVECAFFINE?!
Alah Akbar!
Seastead this.
It's up to the U.S. to decide whether it wants laws against purchasing kiddie porn. Which I believe it has, just as France has laws against purchasing a wide range of Nazi-realted material.
Ask me if I've been required to disclose any crypto keys.
The swastika traditionally has either chirality, and both had the same meaning. Hitler settled on one mirror image over the other, for no discernable reason.
Ask me if I've been required to disclose any crypto keys.
Yahoo! could spin off yahoo.fr, like it did with yahoo.co.uk. I expect it will do so, once market conditions are more favourable (yahoo.co.uk went public when the dotcom bubble was still swelling). If the French courts go on attacking yahoo.com, they might do it sooner.
Ask me if I've been required to disclose any crypto keys.
>Remember the French fleet at Malta...
I thought it was somewhere in Algeria. Malta was part of the British Empire.
>But before the French fleet was destroyed, it had one battle success (it's only one). This was against the naval forces supplying Patton who attempted to cut off Rommel's North Africa corp...
Are you referring to General Patton of the USA? What was he doing fighting Rommel more than two years before America entered the war?
Ask me if I've been required to disclose any crypto keys.
However, it was known in 1941 from Enigma decrypts that German forces were massacring huge numbers of Jews (and others) in the Soviet Union. Churchill publicised these crimes by describing them on the BBC World Service, although this risked exposing the success of his cryptanalysts. He judged that warning European Jews, and playing his strongest propaganda card, justified the gamble. Whether the average American believed these stories, or even listened to them, I cannot say.
Ask me if I've been required to disclose any crypto keys.
This could kind of be considered a different issue, but it brings up a good point. Does a country, such as the United States have the right to pass laws about what there citizens do outside the country. The activity Jay Cohen was convicted of may have occurred outside of the United States, but the US may consider itself to still have jurisdiction over it's citizen's actions. IAMNAL, and I don't know the details of the case, so I don't know if that was the issue with this case.
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 .
Please, stop attacking the French people, the French politicians, ... They are not responsible for a small student movement that is suing Yahoo! and recently for another small movement threatening French ISPs for not blocking US-based neo-nazis web-sites. In all the French forums I have visited, there is an overwhelming majority of French people against these actions. These small anti-racist action groups are simply shooting themselves in the foot. They forgot that Voltaire said that we are all entitled to say stupid things and that he will fight to the death to preserve this right.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
Technically, you're correct when you say that "Swastika!=nazi". But people being the emotional beings that they are, purely logical arguments don't always suffice. The human collective concience is not like your hard drive. You can't simply erase the horrible memory of nazi atrocities like so much data. The swastika will represent the horrors of the nazi regime for many years to come. Symbols matter.
Bet you don't see Microsoft putting any penguins on their packaging any time soon.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
I've been thinking about this quite a bit since I read the piece yesterday on the Hauge, and to me, the end result of this seems to be another transfer of power to megacorp, and not for the exact same reasons stated in yesterday's article by RMS.
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
Ummm... NOT CORRECT
I will quote here from page 3 of my United States passport...
There is also a section clearly laying out what will cause you to lose your citizenship. It clearly states above that the PURCHASE of Cuban (and others) goods or services is prohibited. Now, how to enforce that is left as an exercise for the reader. Just don't go around with the illusion that whatever you do outside the direct jurisdiction of US Law won't get you in trouble here. As a US Citizen there are certain laws applicable to you no matter where you might be.
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.
So, what is your attitude when the US government tries to tell Canadian retailers they're not allowed to sell Cuban-made clothing ?
The US government thinks it can apply US law around the world, so why shouldn't the French government play the same game ?
Quidquid Latine dictum sit, altum videtur (anything said in Latin sounds important)
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.
Because the French were spineless cowards that collaborated with the Nazis to save their own skins, and they're embarrassed by that fact. This is harsh, but entirely true. Actually you seem to be talking about Petain the fascist collaborator who staged what amounted to a coup d'état following the fall of Paris, and appointed him self 'Marshal'. At the beginning of the war, France had more planes, more tanks, more of just about everything than Germany This is pretty much true, most of the French army was only just mobilised and intact following the fall of Paris. and because they just outright surrendured (Vichy, etc.). Vichy was even worse it was fascist collaboration government.
The problem here is that there is a country that cannot face history. Similar problems (especially with Nazi's) occur in German and many other countries. Not to say that America doesnt have it's share of problems.
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
Of course not. The US are a sovereign nation. They don't need to follow french law. However, concider a french site selling material that is banned in the US, but not in France, let's say certain drugs (maybe replace France by the Neather Lands). Wouldn't you expect this nation to respect US laws and NOT sell theese goods to US customers? I don't think the french judge has the right in any juristical sense to impose anything onto any US company. I think you should do that yourself, but obviously you don't really care what US companies do in foreign nations (by you I mean a certain, non neglectable part of the US citizens, but most probably not you, the AC, I just reply to).
KdenLive/PIAVE - non-linear video editing
No, you did only read the thread, but not the article. They want that the stuff is not accessable for french customers. If they can only achieve this by removing the pages completely that's Yahoo's problem.
KdenLive/PIAVE - non-linear video editing
And they don't want it to be sold to their country. They don't care about americans trading among themselves.
The American Yahoo site is *not* operating on French soil
No, but they support shipping to French soil.
rance's gov't should take responsibility for their country, instead of suing a foreign corporation because they are unwilling (or unable) to enforce their own laws.
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. I am aware of the fact, that yahoo is not actually selling the stuff, but they protege the trade.
KdenLive/PIAVE - non-linear video editing
We won.
you did exactly: nothing.
if we hadn't propped them up
Again, you did exactly: nothing.
I owe you nothing. Maybe you father or grandfather. My best regards to them, thanks
Actually, the post is so ridiculous.. I guess it was meant to be a joke. Anyways, thanks for playing.
Cheers
KdenLive/PIAVE - non-linear video editing
And all the time US tries to stop foreign companies from exporting.
Do you think before writing?
Yes I do, do you, too? And do you check the facts? Are you actually aware about the hundreds of cases were US tries to impise US law on foreign countries?? You know what "ignorance" means??
KdenLive/PIAVE - non-linear video editing
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
KdenLive/PIAVE - non-linear video editing
And if a U.S. citizen decided to purchase kiddie porn it's his fucking business too? There's no global edict for what is 'evil', although personally I do go along with the commonly held view that kiddie porn is more evil since it's still causing suffering. France is at least as democratic as the U.S, if the French people feel strongly enough about their rights to purchase Nazi memorabillia let them do it themselves.
404 Not Found: No such file or resource as '.sig'
First, I must answer some wrong points about French background : No, law don't take someone guilty until it's proven he's innocent and yes, we can't say or sell anything - racist speech and nazi memorabilia are forbidden.
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.
The outcome here seems obvious, tbe US court will simply say that the French have no say over the US, which they don't.
This doesn't mean the French are wrong, they are simply trying to protect their citizens, as are the US.
The US court ruling will have no more meaning to the French than the French ruling has to the French.
Any multi-national company must be prepared to deal with this themselves or via Diplomacy.
Doh, 'French ruling has to the _US_'
The most disturbing point of all of this is that a U.S. owned and operated site is being forced by a court in another country to remove content it cannot stand.
.. well, pretty much everything from U.S. servers? Hmm?
I know pretty much everyone here realizes what a dangerous precedent that sets, but how do we convince the judges of that? There are a lot of countries out there a whole lot more hostile to U.S. hosted content than France, and if we open the door to this, what's to stop folks like the Taliban from using this to remove
73 de N5VB (ex-KD5BIV) AR SK
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 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.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
How can Americans FORCE Libya to extradite plane bombers?
How can Americans do whatever they wish and forget about other countries?
Because they're always right? I guess most of us Europeans were delighted to hear Mr. Bush state that pollution has no proven impact on nature. But I still fail to understand why a country shouldn't be allowed to decide what crosses their borders.
Don't take me wrong. I'm a strong advocate of free speech. I think Nazi information, even outright propaganda is on the list of things which MUST be allowed. I just find it amusing to hear a people that tries to impose its views on everybody else rant about someone else presenting their views and ruling illegal actions of some company which actually operates in, among other countries, France.
And no, I'm not Serbian, Libyan nor French.
The limitation on this is that (EU internal rules and possible future developments aside) judgements of courts in one country are not enforceable in the courts of other countries. So, the French court can rule that Yahoo! (US) has breached French law. The French authorities will enforce this judgement against Yahoo! (US) to the extent that they are in France (or, possibly, the rest of the EU). If French law allows judgements to be enforced against subsidiaries then they can go after Yahoo.fr too. US Authorities, however, will ignore the French judgement.
By the same token, a US court can rule that the French court's judgement is invalid at US law (or even French law). The French courts and authorities will presumably feel free to ignore the outcome.
So, Afghanistan can legislate to make pornography illegal in the US, but they have to get their hands on the offenders to do anything about it.
Why can't we respect that every country has their own culture with their own values? Do we need to tackle everything as a technical, internet based problem?
Please, wake up and understand that the world does not stop at your own border, that life can't be expressed in bits and bytes.
Fight Spammers!
And why does Yahoo care? French law isn't the same as U.S. law.
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!
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
Someone made a statement about countries only policing their own citizens whether they are a the buyer or the seller. I think almost all of us can agree with this. Well since Yahoo! is a French citizen, what is the problem here? Sounds like an american judge was just as impatient as a large percentage of you and decided to skip the details.
----- sXe
Yahoo! removing the auctions is alright, but France telling US websites what they can and can't do; that is just plain wrong. At first I thought that it might be okay, but it comes down to who percives what as offencive. If yahoo posts a site about Nazis, France just has to deal. It comes down to this: we have the freedom of speech. In the US there are laws that protect even the most slimy websites out there. If this doesn't fit in with your nation cut the telephone lines, filter at ISPs, or just deal. This is almost as absurd as making everything appropriate for a 3 year old so parents don't have to parent.
#set prompt = $user.$group @ `hostname -s`#
root.wheel @ reality#
Remove *your pants* to send me email.
Us law does not allow gambling on the internet. You move your servers to some carabiean island. The gambling servers can still be accessed from the US. As long as you dont have a office in the US they will not touch you.
But if you have a office in the us, somebody from that office is going to jail.
Same for this in france. Even though they removed it from the french servers, they have office in france. Somebody from there will be in the French Forign Legion real soon if the same offending stuff can still be reached on any server from France.
Are we going to let those whiney French bastards tell us what to do? I most certainly hope not. A French judge has absolutly no jurisdiction over ANYTHING on US soil. I'm not a lawyer, but I do believe that's why we have borders and things like that.
geek n performer who performs morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken
IIRC, US citizens *are* bound by US law even when outside the country. This has (again, IIRC) been used to arrest people who have been using child prostitutes in Asia whilst on holiday.
What would Lemmy do?
Considering that they won your War of Independence for you, it seems you're about even now.
What would Lemmy do?
Hmm... I wonder to what extreme the US would go.
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...
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Quite. But the existence of yahoo.fr means that Yahoo! is, effectively, operating in France. Therefore it is bound by French law. While it continues to pay the bills and connect the dividends from yahoo.fr, it cannot claim to be a different legal entity. Therefore it is under the obligation not to carry out acts which are illegal in France. Selling Nazi memorabilia to French citizens is illegal in France. Selling Nazi memorabilia to US citizens is not illegal in France. Yahoo could make an effort to stop breaking the law in France, but it didn't.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
The school in question was Georgia Tech Lorraine, located in Lorraine, France.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
They are asking Yahoo to stop serving those pages from their US server to French clients. Yahoo is claiming, in the face of all the technical evidence (and indeed of their own "targeted advertising" claims), that it is impossible for them to identify French clients to the satisfaction of the court.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
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.
This is not, however, a french court overreaching its jurisdiction.
That bombing in Kenya, it was at the US embassy. That's American soil, same as if it was in Iowa. That's why the bomber blew it up in the first place, he wanted to kill Americans, not Kenyans. Although, he killed a lot more of the latter than the former.
The norwegian kid was caught up because of NATO treaties.
--why?
Nope, you are wrong. Embassies are little pieces of the country they represent, surrounded by the host country. The US Embassies are regarded as pieces of US soil surounded by the host country. And as such, blowing up a US embassy is like blowing up a federal building her on North America. Blowing up an Embassy is an act of war. This, however, is something completely different. Yahoo should not have to abide their US servers under French, or anybody elses laws. If they have to abide by Frances laws, does that mean any company doing business in China has to subject their American web servers to draconian Chinese censorship laws, and be punished accordingly? No.
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
So, you are saying that my web site, here in the US, has to abide by Chinese laws, and I am punishible under Chinese laws? HAHAHA thats the funniest thing I've heard! Granted, if one of my servers were in China, of course I would have to go by their laws. But to say the server that sits here in US is subject to other countries laws, is ridiculous, and unconstitutional.
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
-
Both attempt to impose their world view on everyone else
-
Both protect themselves above the good of the world.
-
Both spy on their friends for commercial gain.
-
Both are overly proud of their own countries, despite the obvious problems and inadaquacies.
The only difference, the US is big enough to get its way - at the moment.When China's economy grows large enough to take its place at the foremost world nation, then things could get really dangerous.
Remember, France used to be a world power, and it didn't disappear quietly.
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.
The heart has reasons that reason does not understand. - Jacques Bènigne Bossuet
I think this helps show why there needs to be some sort of international agreements governing commerce. Now I am not saying that I support the WTO or other trading agreements the U.S. has entered into. However, if you Yahoo were able to get a judgment from an American judge, wouldn't the next step be the United States bringing a case against France in the World Trade Organization?
I really believe that we need to have some international mechanism that deals with issues like this. Commercial speech versus political speech and other issues like that. I just wish the process for the average international citizen (I'm an American) wasn't so lacking in democratic representation.
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
A good example is the tax laws -- US citizens have to file income tax paperwork even if they lived the entire year outside of the US and earned no money in the US -- still have to pay the taxman as a citizen.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
The problem perhaps that most of the world will have with this scenario is that the US, by virtue of its military and economic power, has considerable diplomatic weight, usually more so than any other one country. Thus the US can use that weight to get its way, and there would be little the other country could do to prevent that, other than by allying with other countries sympathetic to its cause.
This is how I see the situation should be handled in France. If the French don't want Nazi memorabilia being bought by French citizens, that's fine, and they're within their right to declare it. If their citizen try to sidestep the law by buying the memorabilia outside of France from a company/indivdual who is allowed by the local laws to sell it, then the French government has the right to prosecute its own citizens for breaking the law. The French government also has the right to police its border and check imported items for possible illegal good and confiscate them.
What it doesn't have is any right to dictate what a company/individual can sell where the company/individual is not located in their jurisidiction. Thus, to require yahoo.fr to get rid of Nazi stuff from their auctions is acceptable, since its actually located in France. To require or threaten yahoo globally to ban nazi stuff was out of line. That should have been dealt with by diplomatic means, through the US, as it had the local jurisdiction.
Alternatively France would have the right to mandate yahoo comply, or to lose their privledge to do business in France, and then it would be up to yahoo to choose whether or not to comply. If they didn't, they could still run auctions outside France, but have to close yahoo.fr. It would be up to them what was preferable, to lose some customers or stand for being bossed around by a government that shouldn't have jurisdiction over their entire market.
In the end, I think it would be best for any country that values freedom over restriction to keep sovereignty and jurisdiction on its own soil. If one country starts placing its bans and restrictions on others, then someday all countries will attempt to do the same, and if its successful, we'll end a global massively restricted society. To that end, I think it best to leave each country to decide what's best for itself in regards to censorship of ideas.
Pollution may require international commitment and cooperation, but censorship (from my yankee american point of view) is wrong and no one country should be able to force another to censor its material simply because they don't like it. I'm sure the pro-censorship people would say that that their goal of censorship requires a global cooperation, but I wonder if they'll want to cooperate when someone else who has different ideas of what's 'right and wrong' comes along and wants to censor them....
But my dreams they aren't as empty, as my conscience seems to be...
I am French, and I'd like to ask you something: would you like to see someone selling stones from the american embassies bombed by the talebans online in yahoo! auctions with the marketing argument that it represent a symbol of the fate of america? If nazi object selling and smugling are forbiden in France it is not for fun to make happy a couple of old veterans... We do respect your laws, then please help enforce ours.
The Americans had to bail the French out of trouble in World War Two because of those pesky Germans. Now they have to do it again with all that pesky memorabilia. It seems that they're getting weaker. First, it was an army. Then, it's that army's paraphenalia. What next?
- - - If the sun is a star, why can't I see it at night?
And they are fighting to regain control of their AMERICAN based servers. Just because someone in France calls up a US based webserver and asks for content that is illegal in their country DOES NOT mean that the company owning the server has done anything wrong.
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
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
It's "bad" for a foreign government to dictate what US citizens may publish -- but it's "OK" to sentence a foreign national to life in prison for a crime committed in another country (vis: the Saudi recently sentenced in New York for the bombing in Kenya).
It seems to me that many Americans want it both ways; they don't want any foreign laws to be imposed on US citizens, but they want the full force of US law imposed on foreign nationals -- even in other countries.
Heck, the Supreme Court even ruled that it was legal to kidnap foreign nationals to try them in the US.
And how about that Norweigan kid that was such a cause celebre last year -- questioned by Norweigan police last year for activities that weren't illegal in his own country but were illegal in the US.
The US cannot have it both ways.
--
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
I wonder, if France blocked the US site of Yahoo, but left the french site working, would Yahoo still prefer to go along with France in order to get its US site unblocked ?
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Does this mean all inappropriate French internet sites have to shut down ? Of course not !
This french judge is an idiot who is not thinking of the consequences of his order. If things continue like this every single citizen in the world will soon have the right to veto the going-online of a web site.
(But admitted, I might change my mind if I if I would read the actual judgement.)
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
IANAL, but it seems to me that even if Yahoo wins in the US, they still lose in France. Since they have a presence in France, that presence is subject to French law. The French courts could simply levy the fines against Yahoo France for the perceived violations of Yahoo US until all the assets of Yahoo France are gone. I suspect that the revenues of Yahoo France are great enough that Yahoo US wants to keep it open, otherwise they would close up shop and leave.
It's the fact that you don't know that your crossing boundaries, and that should be our right.
Murphy's Law of Copiers
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
Yahoo has a physical business presence 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!
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Apparently "Never Forget" only qualifies for people who are lowbrow enough to not sue for forced discrepance.
After I have received the wisdom of good teaching, I will untiringly teach all people. - The Teachings of Buddha
I hate nazis. And I'm not crazy about Yahoo.
But I still think the whole world should have the same freedoms that the US people have. World Wide free speech.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I dont agree with the content, but I still dont agree in banning it, it seems like the battle for free speech online is still falling downward.
EOU
You got my vote, lets start a petition.
F*&# it how about a war.
Or we can just start killing french people in the US that will show them.
;)
EOU
Espsecially France which repeatedly goes out of its way to slam America and any institution based here. Witness the fiasco with Colleges and their language of choice, to practical sanctioning of destruction to property of American companies on French soil, to their beef on the net.
French politicians are back in again in their deceived little world where they figure they will run the whole shop. Just like the expect the EU to give them power over America that France can never have.
Hell, if there were a way I would suggest we just block France out of the net, that way they can enjoy their French only filtered to hell and back inTRAnet.
Yes the US has some BS things about its net policy, but France takes the cake. If the politicians acted in good faith with their populace they would not be so actively American bashing but instead helping with immigration, high costs of living, and employment issues. However its just the standard method, find someone else to blame or distract the people from their woes.
Whats next, complain that America has problems with Sudan, China, and certain other countries being on the UN HR committee?
oops - done that I guess
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
My army of cats will be decending on the slashdot network to seize its hardware while a few will be sent to eat CmdrTaco.
Good day and I appologize for the inconvienence
We have mail-order companies that sell anything from firearms to car parts that are illegal in some states and legal in others. The buyer is responsible for knowing their laws and not ordering items if they are in a state which doesn't allow them. The cataogs will sometimes say "Not available in CA, VA, etc." and may refuse to ship to some states, but the responsibility falls squarely on the reader.
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.
Try www.yahoo.fr i bet that server isn't in the US. If it is, that would just be stupid seeing as most of its traffic would be headed straight overseas anyway.
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.
-
___
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
The problem with the amendment on free speech is that it was short of thinking of the power the individuals were to get in two centuries (the same for weapons). I think it is OK to scream to the top of your voice that you are a nazi, or to display hand-made shocking drawings, but when using modern media that make you as powerful as, say, CNN, there is some trouble to be expected if one is not perfectly politically correct.
Google passes Turing test : see my journal
You know, you shouldn't restrict the sale of Nazi memorabilia... you should restrict the sale of striped shirts, berets, and skinny ass little cigarettes. NEVER TRUST A SOCIETY THAT WORRIES MORE ABOUT THEIR BREAD THAN THEIR FREEDOMS. They are the equivalent of the fat kid hurling insults at you as the bus pulls away. Don't listen.
The US might have some sort of a "lead" concerning free speech, but how is brandishing a swastika different from insulting someone (I'm of course supposing american law doesn't freely allow you to insult someone)?
Actually, you can insult someone, as long as the insult is not obscene or slanders the target. Comedians do it quite a bit over here...But, as you may know from some of the kooky lawsuits presented here, criminality of speech does not pertain to civil lawsuits. In other words, if you insult someone in public to their face, you can be expected to be presented with a rather hefty lawsuit somewhere down the line, even if the insult was allowed under American free speech laws.
Meanwhile, on the swastika issue, you're talking about the country that has a state that still flies the Confederate battle flag at its capitol building...and groups like the neo-Nazis and the KKK still in existence, and, though not formally recognized by the government, allowed to convene in cities around the country and spread their messages...hell, a few years ago, we had an independent presidential candidate who was Grand Wizard of the KKK, if that tells you anything...
Many laws like this are broken because they attempt to do the enforcement-equivalent of "deep pocketing" -- go after the biggest entity involved? People trading MP3s or Nazi Memorabilia? It's too expensive (and impractical) in our current system of law to prosecute the individual offenders, so we prosecute the broker.
:)
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
Many types of gambling are illegal in the US, so companies move their servers offshore to countries that have unrestricted gambling. If the feds rule against Yahoo, does this mean that they also have the right to demand that the courts in the offshore nations force the gambling sites to close up or to restrict US access? Ditto for the hardcore pr0n sites.
The French courts ARE overstepping their bounds. If any merchandise being offered on Yahoo! is causing the company to alienate its customer base, then Yahoo! should consider pulling the offending items. However, this action should be a business decision made by Yahoo! and not something dictated by courts overstepping their jurisdiction.
I don't think it was Yahoo
-------------------------------------
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
That seems more appropriate in this case (unless, of course, you can prove that all French people believe the judge was right).
Dinivin
It seems to me this entire situation is quite dangerous in the long run. I could be wrong, I only read the cnn site, but it appears to me that the French courts are proving unable to enforce their own bans and are basically shifting responsibilty to Yahoo. As I said this strikes me as quite dangerous.
...how many view points?
;)... could Iran sue McDonalds and Coke for imperlistic capitalism? The idea is basically the same... if one country out of the hundreds in the world can put a halt on something because they don't like it we are asking for trouble.
Seems like I remember in my BBS days most boards had disclaimers including a line like 'any legal action brought against this bbs or its operators will use the laws relevant to OurCity, SomeState'. At the time it didn't seem like a big deal, bbs'es are pretty local.. but alas, we all had them. How many countries exist
My worry is this... If France can sue Yahoo becuase they don't want nazi related material... can Afghanistan then sue victoria secrerets or playboy because they don't like nudity (pretend for a moment they are online
If France doesn't want something coming in perhaps they could do something besides whine?
------ cat ~/lamesig >> ~/lamecomment ------
'..that kernel panicked like a nun in a crack house!'
While this is an interesting case that will be watched by other nations, the end result is obvious to me. The answer is essentially in the initial post itself. Will the US government allow France to dictate what its companies can and cannot do? I don't think so, it would be unamerican.....Besides, nobody likes the french anyway.......
All your base are belong to us!
The french don't listen to our courts, why should we listen to theirs?
For Example:
http://www.philly.com/packages/einhorn/
Give us our prisoner, then we can discuss it.
--T
http://www.theMediaBunker.com
Different jurisdictions are quite likely to have different, and even mutually exclusive, legal requirements.
If you had to comply with laws from every jurisdiction and France demanded that every web site available to French citizens be written in French and East Tdjakickstan mandated that every web site be written in whateverthehelltheyspeakineasttdjakickstan then suddenly _every_ web page is in violation of at least one country's law.
France doesn't own the net any more than the US does.
Peter
Downsize DC Today!
You've got a point, but we still have (in theory, anyways) 1st Amendment protection to say damn near anything we want. IANACLE (i am not a constitutional law expert), but I find it hard to believe that any American judge would find any merit whatsoever in the French suit. As far as a siezure warrant is concerned, I highly doubt a company the size of Yahoo (with how many thousand servers?) would have anything to fear. An individual, on the other hand, probably should worry.
I don't trust our government as far as I can kick'em, but I don't believe that the American judicial system would compromise one of the most important core Constitutional rights just to make the French happy.
Come to think of it, why the hell should we even care what France wants? An American in Paris gets treated like a dog. The French think Americans (and the rest of the world, for that matter) are just a bunch of uncouth, uncultured, unsophisticated idiots. I don't know about you, but I'm in no hurry to give up a single one of my rights as an American because some snooty French court has a hard-on for Nazi paraphernalia.
It really doesn't matter to anyone in the U.S. what a French (or Chinese, German, whatever) judge or court says is legal or illegal on the Internet.
.
Jurisdiction issues aside, how in the hell are they planning to enforce this ruling? Are they going to send the French police or military into the U.S. to arrest Yahoo executives? Will they impose trade sanctions -- "No more wine and cheese for you, you ignorant-Nazi-paraphernalia-auctioning-Americans!
Maybe the French think that by making such a stink about Nazi stuff on the web, the world might forget France's ready acceptance of Nazi rule during the war. If the French hated the Nazi regime so damn much, then why didn't they do more to fight them off during the war -- back when it might have actually mattered!.
The legal problem doesn't just sit with where the server is physically located; which sort-of determines where the auction is taking place. Even doubt could be cast where the server physically is located with enough DHTML wizardy, obnoxious frames, etc.
However, there is no doubt as to who owns the domain name of the URL or who owns the IP network from which the auction site is being served. That's bad because most of the time the domain-name or network owner is innocent; sometimes even unaware this stuff is going on.
There is also more than one way to build an auction site. Suppose you wanted to auction contraband almost no country would authorize? Perhaps you build an auction portal with the data coming from an XML source... you could use Java/MSXML/what-have-you for the data. The auction portal could be served anywhere... say GeoCities or Angelfire.
BUT, the contraband along with an XML feed of the auction data could physically live in Afghanistan or Libya along with the auctioneer. That's perfectly legal in those countries.
Who should be prosecuted? Did the web hosting company commit a crime? Clearly it can't be the company hosting the auction or even a 3rd party providing an auction portal (like e-bay) but the two parties involved in conducting the transaction of the contraband (provided they can be traced and caught and convicted in the countries involved).
Case closed.
Imagine that a Canadian oil tanker was dumping crude into the pacific, such that some of it washed ashore in Washington, it would not matter that the ships were bound for Vancouver, the pollution was experienced by the state of Washington, thus if Washington has laws against crude dumping AND the company and or its subsidiaries/partners does business in Washington, they would obviously be liable there (IANAL).
Enter the most interesting case of the genre Doe vs. Unocal another French Connection. In this case some very bad stuff done in Burma by the corrupt military (mostly slave labor to build pipelines) was connected to the French and the French is connected to the hipbone and the hipbone is connected to California - so the class of Burmese slaves is suing Unocal in California for actions of the military in Burma. They have won for now the issue of jurisdiction. Subject to final ruling these cases will mean that International companies will need to comply with the most restrictive rules on human rights, pollution, and speech which are common to the countries in which they choose to operate legitimately. CNN for example may choose to operate illegally in Baghdad - which I believe they did during the gulf war - they don't however _do_ business in Iraq, their Arab broadcasts are based in India and available by satellite. The US has set the precedent in this case - by allowing a suit against a Company in the U.S. for actions outside its borders.
The US court faces a conundrum here for which they only conclusion can be American Hegemony: France cannot fine companies outside its jurisdiction, but it can fine companies inside its jurisdictions for the known behavior of its benefactors/partners/subsidiaries wherever the behaviors occurred and, ala Doe vs. Unocal, Irregardless of the nationality of the afflicted. By simply getting involved, the US has declared itself to have the right to meddle in the affairs of France - by telling France that she hasn't the same right to meddle in the affairs of the US, while simultaneously reserving for itself the right to meddle in the affairs of Burma via the same mechanism. What the world hears: "we can meddle - you can't." That's hegemony.
I believe very strongly that the US court should differ this as a political matter, rather than a legal one, as our legal system does not have jurisdiction on the French system of government. This is not a question of Free Speech - the issue of guilt is not before the court - only the question of jurisdiction and here it would be doublespeak for the U.S. to tell the French they cannot interfere while the U.S. is doing the same thing (indirectly to France) Yahoo should either not do business in France, obey their laws, or build better fences.
"If you do behave as we ask, we will secretly condemn you for a simpleton who can be shamed into standing aside while the rest of us exploit the commons." Garrett Hardin (1968)
Fuck censorship...especially from cowards who wouldn't fight against what they're attempting to ban.
"Hey, I'm a firm believer in the concept of a ruling class. Especially since I rule."
Randall Graves, Clerks.
You Yanks took an allfull lot of French pussy when you finaly did join WWII
Wouldn't it be nice if schools got all the money they wanted and the army had to hold jumble sales for guns
lol Damn you, what kind of a comment is that? Get some half-assed fool to make you a reed than.
blah blah blah, I'm right, and all evidence proving I'm wrong is insufficient and false.
It started when an enterprising Postal Inspector in Kansas thought, hell, I'll subscribe to Screw Magazine, then, when they send it, bust Al Goldstein for violating *LOCAL* porn laws - even though the magazine was published in New York. A prosecutor in Montgomery Alabama pulled the same stunt on an adult movie provider who used satellite delivery. The fact is, US law recognizes that if you do business in a jurisdiction, you become subject to the local law. The French are trying to take it a step further by saying if you do business here, we reserve the right to regulate how you do business elsewhere... but isn't that the point of a variety of US legislation, starting with all those laws banning trade with Cuba, and South Africa during apartheid? I'm all for telling France to bugger off...but this country's hands aren't clean.
Yeah, I'm a New York Lawyer. That's the good news, and the bad news.
So what happens to Yahoo! if they don't comply with the French order without going to court? Maybe tear down the french site, if it's located in france. Maybe just tear it down anyway to piss off the french users about their government. Maybe just move it back to california and LEAVE IT UP!!! Other than that, I got money says not shit.
Deja Moo: The feeling you have heard this bull before
you were beaten a quite often during your childhood, weren't you?
you'll have to forgive my presumption, then. The "guilty until proven innocent" remark was taken from a source which I thought to be reliable, but apparently is not. Thank you for correcting me...my apologies if anyone was offended.
you'll have to forgive my presumption, then. The "guilty until proven innocent" remark was taken from a source which I thought to be reliable, but apparently is not. Thank you for correcting me...my apologies if anyone was offended.
That's what's so fucked up with us right now! Asslicker
by the way, the thing that's REALLY fucked up with us is the fact that people are too often reduced to using the word "asslicker" in a debate over policy.
I think the big problem that most of us have with this issue is the fact that we aren't very familiar with a legal system that allows such hindrance of "free speech".
The french legal system is ENTIRELY different from that of the US, UK, and Canada. Their views on "inalienable rights" are far more limited than ours, and it reflects in this particular situation. For example, did you know that in the french criminal justice system, all suspects are GUILTY until PROVEN INNOCENT? Sounds backwards, doesn't it? That's because from our point of view, it IS backwards.
In this case, we're also dealing with a nation that that was affected IMMENSELY by Nazi occupation. The region that was known as Vichy France was home to countless extermination camps, most of which were implemented in killing French dissidents. So you have to remember that their memories and opinions of Nazism (and thus all related artifacts) are FAR more deep-seated than our own; this is especially true for US citizens.
So while it may seem like the french courts are overstepping their bounds, or are trying to impede the free speech of others, Yahoo must still use some good judgement and draw the line somewhere. After all, they ARE running a business, and the worst thing a business can do is alienate its customer base.
from the French "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen":
Article 9 - As all persons are presumed innocent until declared guilty, force used in making indispensable arrests which exceeds that needed, shall be severely punished by law.
Once again, please excuse my ignorance of the actual policy.
My point still remains, though, that while it might not be constitutional under American law, it is within the bounds of decency and respect for Yahoo to remove any auctions that might affect any person or persons in France, especially if such action is formally requested by the French government. Again, i'm not saying that they should have to remove it, but i'm saying that they should voluntarily remove it.
"It's an objection to a single locality dictating what other localities might see over the Internet, anywhere, anytime."
I think this is the key point. If French authorities are able to make Yahoo! alter the content of their US site, then what is to stop, say, Afghanistan (and the Taliban) from requiring eBay to block out all non-Islamic items? (I made this example up so please don't nitpick)
I think requiring any business to conform to any and all national laws of any country is an ill-advised and ultimately doomed effort due to the complex nature of the Internet (i.e. the fact that it is a global network with no overall authority).
----------
If there were gods, how could I bear to be no god?
----------
If there were gods, how could I bear to be no god?
Consequently there are no gods.
I don't think I understand precisely how the hell Frenchmen can decide what goes on on an American website. What right do they have? None. I can understand that it offends a great deal of people, and, I want that material off too, but the issue here is whether or not France has jurisdiction over the US. I wasn't aware that we traded England for France when we won the Revolution. :p
Maybe more people would understand the Electoral College if it had a football team.
It is interesting reading the comments concerning the French government's banning of the the sale or Nazi related items. For the less enlightened Americans reading this, I will begin a LONG list of enfractions and issues with the American government and in turn the support given by the American population (not all Americans thank God). The beginning: Vericruz Mexico (various times, Texas, California etc), Canada (war of 1812) Panama (various times including a couple of years ago, nice of the US government to arrest there own hatchet man) Grenada (I was there at the time, those Cuban combat engineer's building bridges and houses were really ruthless!) Vietnam (the French were losing after Dien Bien Phu - so bring in the Americans) Cambodia (of the course this never really occurred, same as the bombings never really occurred) Puerto Rico (How exactly did those Spanish ever decide to leave on there own anyways?) US Virgin Islands (Damn those Spanish anyways) Cuba (Bay of Pigs anyone) Various arrests including those involved with various horrible but quite illegal activities OUTSIDE OF US BORDERS: The Nigerians The Somalians The Cubans The Panamians The Salvadorians The Grenadans The Guyanese (I was in Guyana after Jonestown) The Columbians The Mexicans Air America Nicuragua Contra's Namibia etc etc etc On and on and on and on and on and on. Now a lot the individuals involved with activities, incidents and locations deserved to be punished or dealth. BUT THE US government on a near daily basis does what it wants and does not give a damn about the consequences. Whether the initial situation was legal or not (more often illegal in another country) Please give relevant responses and not a bunch or Rah Rah America nonsense. Keep in mind that the French have quite a wretched record as well and the list has only begun. Once again, most of my American friends do not like or support their government's activities in the various illegal schemes that they are involved with, but also they are not planting bombs and killing innocent civilians like Timothy McVeigh. -* Snaz *-
Is it so hard to simply not permit shipping of Nazi memorabilia to France, or is there more to it than that?