PARIS (AP) - Advocacy groups that sued to block French Web surfers from accessing Nazi artifacts cheered Yahoo's decision to stop carrying online auctions of hate-related materials worldwide.
"This is a great victory. It goes beyond what we could have hoped for," Marc Knobel, Internet expert for the International Anti-racism and Anti-Semitism League, known as LICRA, said Wednesday.
Yahoo! Inc. announced late Tuesday that starting Jan. 10 it will stop carrying online auctions featuring hate-related material such as medals, weapons, uniforms, official documents and other items carrying swastikas or other symbols associated with hate groups.
The items join a list of banned auction goods that also includes cigarettes, live animals and used underwear.
The new guidelines will apply to the site's classified listings and its e-commerce partners. Yahoo search directories, chat rooms and other areas will not be affected.
LICRA lawyer Marc Levy expressed his "great surprise" at Yahoo decision to issue a blanket ban on hate auctions worldwide, not just in France.
Two French anti-racism groups sued Yahoo in April, accusing the company of violating French law barring the display or sale of racist material. The groups said the French had a right to be shielded from the commercialization of Nazi objects.
Yahoo's lawyers argued during trial that blocking the site from the French would be technically impossible. The Internet has no borders, they said, and there is no effective way to prevent its users from traveling where they like.
In May, the French judge ruled that Yahoo had offended the nation's "collective memory" and ordered the Internet company to pay $1,000 to each group. A judge confirmed the ruling in November, ordering Yahoo to find ways to block French users from its sites selling Nazi paraphernalia or face $13,000 a day in fines.
Yahoo said the court rulings played no role in the new policy.
"We decided we don't necessarily want to profit from items that promote hatred or glorify hatred and violence," senior auction producer Brian Fitzgerald said Tuesday.
The second group that sued Yahoo also praised the policy change Wednesday. It demonstrates that the "economic grandeur of an important company in the new economy is not above morals and justice," said Ygal El Harrar, president of the Union of Jewish Students in France.
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On the Net:
http://auctions.yahoo.com
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AP-ES-01-03-01 1008EST
