French Court Says Yahoo Isn't A War Criminal After All

from the lucky-yahoo dept

Three years ago, a French court decided that Yahoo and it's chief executive were war criminals for allowing the sale of Nazi memorabilia on non-French websites (Yahoo did block them from Yahoo's French site). Since then, there have been a variety of appeals and discussions about jurisdictional issues online, eventually leading to a ruling out of a Parisian Appeals Court today admitting that perhaps Yahoo wasn't a war criminal after all. While that (finally) does make sense, it still doesn't clear up the very big jurisdictional questions this case raised. If we're held to the standard that anyone can reach any content online, and therefore any law applies, then it will cripple the internet -- as the most stringent laws will be held to apply across the board. However, it seems like everyone is still ignoring this issue until it strikes again.