The Internet, as we've heard time after time, is borderless. That means that some of the material people publish online will be legal in some places and illegal in others. America faces this problem every day when offshore gambling operations run Web sites that are available to anyone here, even though they're illegal. Laws also vary from state to state: You can order wine from an out-of-state winery in some states, but not others.
Not to continue picking on Paris -- after all, Random Access bought an "aller retour" ticket to France this week -- but insisting that French law apply to a distant corner of the Internet, just because you can access it from inside French borders, raises tough questions about online freedom.
| ___About Random Access___ Random Access is a daily column by Robert MacMillan that explores the latest trends in technology and how they are changing daily life. Random Access won't tell you why a new gizmo will revolutionize your ad server. It will tell you about episodes from daily life -- exasperated waiters who use blogs to vent about their customers, whole runs of salmon injected with nanoparticles for individual tracking in Norwegian fjords and the growing number of DJs who are sick of being sidelined in favor of iPods. (Only one of these stories is fake.) Most of what you see will be culled from news sources and blogs from around the world, though we will supplement Random Access with original files on the novel, unusual, bizarre and reactionary happenings in the world of technology and society. E-mail: Send links and comments. | | |
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Consider Yahoo Inc.'s continuing troubles with naughty Nazis auctioning their paraphernalia online. The latest twist in this ongoing tale is in Yahoo's favor. A French appeals court yesterday cleared the company's former president and chief executive, Tim Koogle, of charges that he violated French law by allowing Nazi and racist items to be sold through its U.S. auction site.
"The former Yahoo! chief executive had been taken to court by the Association of Auschwitz Deportees, a group of survivors of the infamous Nazi death camp," Agence France-Presse reported. "Koogle had risked a fine of [46,000 euros, or about $49,150] and five years' imprisonment if found guilty of the first charge, and a [1,500 euro] fine for the second." ZDNet's France staff reported that the association, along with the Mouvement Contre le Racisme et Pour l'Amitié des Peoples (Movement Against Racism and for Understanding Between Peoples), accused Yahoo of "justifying war crimes and crimes against humanity" by allowing the auctions. (The groups sued Koogle because they could not sue the entire company.)
This wouldn't be such a big deal in the United States, where the Constitution affords freedom of speech protections even to Nazis, but it violates France's law against hate speech. Yahoo, based in California, does not allow such material to show up on its French Web site but that doesn't stop anyone in France from typing in http://www.yahoo.com and searching the American site. Not only that, the Yahoo France site contains a direct link to the English pages.
Nevertheless, the court said Koogle could not be held responsible for what was sold on the site's auction pages.
That case, which was filed in 2000, probably will come to a close in France, but it will drag on in the United States. Here's why, according to the Associated Press: In 2001, French courts started fining Yahoo more than $13,000 for each day that it did not remove racist auction items from its U.S. Web site. The company, the AP said, now theoretically owes $5 million. A U.S. federal judge in 2002 ruled that Yahoo faced the possibility of lawsuits because being available worldwide meant running the risk of violating some countries' laws. An appeals court panel reversed that decision in August, but said in February that it would rehear some arguments this spring, the AP said.
France's appeals court ruled correctly that Koogle should not be held liable for the auctions. The appeals court, meanwhile, should toss out the lawsuit against Google.
France must find a way to deal with the fact that in the United States we have every right to believe in and buy merchandise that appeals to people who ought to be locked up and fed bread and water for the rest of their lives (on days when we're feeling generous). France cannot stop its Jean-Marie Le Pen wannabes or its legions of boneheaded Holocaust revisionists and racists from visiting Web sites in other countries and getting hold of contraband material. What it can do is keep fighting the good fight on the ground. Right-wing extremists have a habit of taking to the streets and making asses of themselves. It'll be Hitler's birthday in a few days and they'll all come out to goosestep in various places around Europe. If that violates the law, round them up, put them on trial, stick them in jail.
Meanwhile in America, e-commerce corporations should search for racist material and expunge it from their sites. It can be done and it is worth doing, but asking a court to outlaw free speech is asking for trouble.
