France Orders Yahoo to Block Site

PARIS — In a landmark ruling affecting legally uncharted Internet territory, a French judge Monday ordered the U.S. portal Yahoo to block Web surfers in France from an auction site selling Nazi memorabilia.

Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez gave Yahoo three months to find a way to prevent users based in France from accessing pages that feature nearly 2,000 Nazi-related objects, such as swastika-emblazoned flags and daggers.

After the deadline, Yahoo would be fined $13,000 for each day it does not comply.

The decision capped a seven-month court battle initiated by anti-racism groups that accused the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company of violating French hate law. During the proceeding, the judge called on leading technical experts to examine the feasibility of “zoning” the Internet.

Yahoo and free-speech advocates say the case could set a dangerous precedent by granting one country the right to reach across borders and impose its laws on Web sites based in other nations.

A Yahoo attorney, Greg Wrenn, contended that France had no jurisdiction in the case and indicated that his company would ignore the decision unless a U.S. court were to enforce it. He said Yahoo, the world’s most popular Internet portal, would refuse to pay the fines.

“The French approach would lead to a lowest common denominator world where the most restrictive rules of any country would govern all speech on the Internet,” said Alan Davidson, staff counsel with the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington.

France, which lost tens of thousands of its citizens to the Holocaust, has strict laws aimed at squelching racist expression. It is illegal here to display or sell racist material.