Yahoo!, the world's leading Web portal, will ban the sale of Nazi memorabilia from its Internet auction pages, a lawyer for the firm said last night.
The lawyer said the move was not in response to a French court's order banning the sale of such material, which included SS daggers and replicas of Zyklon B gas canisters used in gas chambers.
"Yahoo! did this as matter of company policy," said Mr Michael Traynor, a San Francisco attorney representing the firm in its French lawsuit. "The court case is ongoing and is a separate matter entirely."
The ban takes effect January 10th. In November a French judge held Yahoo! must implement technology to bar French users from being able to buy and sell Nazi artifacts.
The court also ordered a daily 100,000 francs ($13,200) fine for violating the order. On December 21st, Yahoo! asked a US court to overturn the French court's order on grounds France has no jurisdiction on the company.
The case was seen as an crucial test of how national laws can be imposed in the freewheeling, cross-border world of cyberspace. Germany and other countries have protested the sale of Nazi goods on local Yahoo! sites.
"The case continues because there's an important issue at stake," said Mr Traynor. "It's one thing to do something voluntarily but it's another to be ordered to do something. That ordering about is what we cannot let happen."
"But the company also is concerned about freedom of speech, which is why we will continue to fight the French court's order," said Mr Traynor.
Reuters