sailer, just because they have assets in France does not mean France should jurisdiction over what is on an American Yahoo server.
If you have a house in France, does that mean a house you own in the US is subject to French zoning laws?
Saying America should have any say in French affairs because “we saved their butts in WWII” is ludicrous. I mean, if it weren’t for Lafayette (marquis of) and the French and Spanish financing of the American revolution, it may well have failed. Does that give the French the right to intervene in American affairs?
The internet presents new problems that the legal systems in most countries are attempting to deal with. I believe there was recently a call for all developed countries to coordinate their legislation regarding the internet and all european countries, including France, were ready to attend and the USA said they had no interest. I do not have the details so I am willing to be corrected. But if they want cooperation they should be ready to play with everybody else, not just dictate rules. If America wants cooperation from other countries it should expect to give some back.
Furthermore, sometimes some verdicts may seem unjustified or illogical. That Americans are ready to jump all over other countries for verdicts they do not quite understand is laughable given that the American legal system is a combination of a circus and a lottery that even most Americans know is a joke no one comprehends.
I may not like the French laws (or the French people for that matter) but the common attitude in this thread (let’s see them enforce that verdict! ha!) is quite stupid. First of all, as I pointed out, if Yahoo has assets in France, they can enforce it very easily.
Secondly, even if they couldn’t, it is not a good way of resolving problems because next time the USA needs some cooperation from France, the French will feel justified in saying the same thing back. (There is an American convicted murderer who has been living in France on some technicality of the law for a couple of decades now and America likes to complain about it.)
Trying to resolve things by cooperation works better for everyone. That is the main point I am trying to make. There was a case where a State (I believe Virginia) sentenced some South American guy to death and it was proven he had not been given due process as he had been denied access to consular protection to which he was entitled by treaty. The state said, “we don’t care, we’ll execute the guy anyway, what’s his country going to do? invade us?”. I remember Madelaine Albright was much more somber because it is her job to try to protect Americans who are in similar situations abroad and this wasn’t any help. Would you want to be the next American sentenced in that South American country? (I forget which one it was.)
You say France has no jurisdiction over a server located in America. I do not think they claim that. They probably claim jurisdiction over a corporation with an establishment in France.
The US has hit hard some online casinos and the fact that they may have their servers located elsewhere does not diminish the fact that they (the corporations) are subject to US law as they are located in the US even if the servers are not.
If you (in the US) try to setup a website that facilitates trade with Cuba, you can bet your bootie the Feds will be calling at your door pretty soon and the fact that the site is located offshore ain’t gonna help you one bit.
If a resident in the USA, establishes a website full of kiddie porn in an offshore server, do you think that is enough to get him off the hook with the feds?
I think the most over-reaching laws are those of the USA relating to the Cuban embargo as they attempt to dictate what foreigners can do on foreign soil over which the USA has no jurisdiction. Now that is really laughable (not to mention against international law and unenforceable).
Come to think about it, I do not think Bin Laden has ever set foot on the USA much less committed any crimes there and yet the US tried to bomb him in Afghanistan… Hmmm… maybe that would give the French the right to bomb the Yahoo GHQ in the US? One Exocet would probably suffice?
So let us not make fun of the French for unjustified reasons when we have so many well-founded and justified reasons to deride them.
Sailor has some good points, although some of the examples are straw men. I don’t think one should compare the “crime” of offending sensibilities to murder or terrorism. (I realize that within the lunacy of the phenomena known as “international relations” they may become equal, but that will never make them morally so.) Nor do I think the feds would be able to nail an offshore kiddie porn site, so long as the US owner didn’t have any pictures whatsoever in the US. Not that I would ever condone it…
Actually I would think it would be relatively easy for Yahoo to comply:
If cookie.user.country = “France” then hide-link(“Nazi Stuff”).
Ok, it’s more complicated than that (especially if they hold Yahoo responsible if someone lies and says they’re not from France), but for the sake of alienating a country, they might do it…
<Sigh> Is it too late to unplug France from the internet?
You think it may be legal for you to set up an offshore kiddie porn site? I doubt it very seriously. The fact that it is not physically in the US does not diminish the fact that you (the cause) are on US soil and so are the effects of your actions.
But going back to Yahoo, here’s a better example: Anyone subject to US jurisdiction (US citizens anywhere in the world and everybody on US soil) are prohibited from any dealing with anything to do with Cuba. You cannot legally offer to sell Cuban cigars abroad on a web site abroad. Nazi stuff yes, cuban cigars no. What do you think other countries think of this? Heck, even most Americans think it is pretty stupid! (Probably most French people think the Yahoo incident is pretty stupid.)
You think the Treasury Dept. does not bother with small stuff like this? Think again. Check out http://www.havanacup.com/ It turns out you can legally sail to Cuba on your own if you do not spend money there but you cannot legally organize a group trip there even if the individuals can go on their own. This Yacht club was made to take down their web pages which were merely coordination efforts for all the boats sailing to Cuba. It is not legal to coordinate something which is legal. I suppose their web pages were hosted in a server on American soil but i can assure you it would make no difference to their case. had they merely moved their pages to a server in another country the Treasury would go after them.
Read the Treasury’s Cease and Desist order at http://www.havanacup.com/cd2.shtml and you will see the language:
“Section 515.201 (b) of the Regulations prohibits all persons subject to the jurisdiction of the US from dealing in property in which Cuba or a Cuban national has an interest of any nature whatsoever” It goes on to say this covers almost anything including services and even if there is no compensation.
So, suppose Pierre comes to the US and leaves a box of Cuban cigars in his apartment in Paris. From the US he emails his friend Jacques telling him he can have the cigars… Oops! not legal! He cannot advertise them for sale on a French site either.
A French company with operations in the USA could have the Treasury go after them for dealing in Cuban stuff outside the US.
sailer, do you think that every time someone is going to put up something for sale on the Internet, is it reasonable to expect that they will have to make sure that there is no law anywhere in any country that is connected to the Internet that it might be against? CNN.com is probably breaking laws in some middle Eastern countries by showing unveiled women.
And who said that America should have say in French affairs because “we saved their butts in WWII”?
[hijack] Kvalluf- beautiful. just beautiful. expect a raise. [/hijack]
I think that the French should rule over only sites in their own country. If Yahoo! was a French based company(ha!) then they should be able to regulate it. Otherwise, die, you stupid French!
“You poor people stupid idiots. You must understand that the French are your superiors in all the things. You must curve downwards before all our requests. Your American arrogance is terrible! How challenge do you offend us? Dammit, our line of Maginot was impenetrable. Why do you insist to recall us that when that when it really imported swindled us more for the Germans more quickly than a whore of the two dollars?”
(this is from alta vista) even with french 3 i didnt even try to translate it:)
the french “are” arrogant, especially in Paris. Which is why we have the right to make fun of them
Next step: a Saudi Arabian court rules against the Hickory Farms website because it sells hams.
It is a commonly accepted principle of law that a court has authority over anybody who purposefully directs their actions towards the citizens within that court’s jurisdiction.
For example, WWOR, the television “superstation” in New Jersey, is picked up by cable television companies all over the country. WWOR is aware that its signals are transmitted in California. It charges advertisers higher rates than a purely local station could because it reaches a national audience. In short, WWOR derives a benefit from it being available to Californians, even though the station has no physical presence in California.
As a result, a court in California would be entitled to assert jurisdiction over WWOR on the basis that WWOR purposefully directed its activities towards the citizens of California, even though it may never have set foot in the state of California. The logic is that since WWOR derives a meaningful portion of its revenue from its connection to California, it is not unreasonable to allow California courts to police the actions of WWOR viz-a-vis the citizens of California.
How is the situation any different from the one in France? Undoubtedly, Yahoo has derived revenue from making its services available to French citizens. Why should the French courts be helpless to protect those citizens against wrongdoing by Yahoo that takes place in France? Assume that that Yahoo posted an article that falsely claimed that the most famous restaurant in Paris had been serving adulterated food. Why should the restaurant have to travel to the U.S. to file suit when the defamatory statement was “published” on the computers of millions of French?
The burdens on webistes to comply is not difficult. First of all, sites that purposefully target international users should do their homework, just as any other company seeking to do business overseas does. If Yahoo is aware that some of its content might violate laws in other countries, it can impelement any number of techinical solutions, from blocking access to that content to all users from ISPs in that country, to simply requiring an acknowledgement from the user via a dialog box that they do not live in _____ before sending the content. Other people who post information on the web but do not affirmatively direct that content to specific countries and derive substantial revenue because of its activities in those countries (e.g. personal homepages, companies that accept orders from the U.S. only) would not be subject to the foreign court’s jurisdiction in any event.
Nurlman, I’m not sure the analogy between a TV station and an internet site is all that valid. The biggest and most pertinent difference is that a TV station is usually in it’s inception confined to a limited market, and it takes work to expand it’s audience.
A web site is accessable to every Internet user on Earth, as soon as it is put up. Is it reasonable to say that every web page ever put up is “targeting” every country on Earth, from the moment it comes into existence?
And I don’t feel that it is a simple thing to analyze every law in every country of the planet. I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know what resources might be available to assist in this task, but I still doubt it would be a simple thing.
Suppose there is a middle eastern country that has a law against pictures of unveiled women. Do it reasonable that every web page on Earth would have to obey this law, because of that one country? CNN would be breaking the law by showing pictures of Janet Reno and Madeline Albright.
I don’t think any of the proposals for blocking the sites you mention are reasonable either. Blocking access to content based on country isn’t easy, or maybe even possible, based on the article I’ve read about this case. Granted, these were responses from Yahoo! after the French verdict, so they may have exaggerated the difficultness of this task.
And the user dialog solution would be an incredible pain in the ass. How many dialogs do you think might be necessary? Can you imagine having to click through 15 dialogs every time you go to a new site?
“Are You in France? This site has items that promote racism”
“Are you in <middle eastern country>? This site has unveiled women”
“Are you in <muslim country>? This site has pork products”
“Are you in Britain? This site has dental products!”
OK, that last one was a joke, but you get the point.
I may have been a little unclear. The standard for deciding whether a foreign court can assert jurisdiction over you is usually phrased as something along the lines of whether you “purposefully availed” yourself of the benefits of conducting your business in that jurisdiction. Those two elements, purposeful conduct and conducting business, ought to be enough to protect innocent parties from being hauled into court overseas.
For example, let’s say I have a non-commercial homepage on the web, and among my interests are the collection of Nazi memorabilia. My page, while certainly accessible to a French citizen, is not purposefully directed at them, not at anybody else. I haven’t taken out ads in French newspapers and magazines urging people to visit my site. For all practical purposes, my webpage is like a copy of a defamatory newspaper someone left in the seat pocket of an international air flight: it may show up in a foreign jurisdiction, but the writer certainly didn’t purposefully direct it into that jurisdiction. Under these circumstances, the writer probably wouldn’t be subject to suit in that jurisdiction.
As for conducting business, that’s a little more fluid concept. Courts often attempt, sometimes confusingly, to define what constitutes significant amounts of business in a foreign state. Often, whether a company’s contacts in a foreign state are sufficiently significant is a question that is underpinned by the ephemeral question of “fairness.” Some courts have even gone so far as to say that the question is one of whether, given the extent of the company’s contacts in the foreign jurisdiction, it could reasonably expect to be called into court based on its activities there.
That being said, although I know little about the Yahoo case, it doesn’t strike me as too surprising. I have no doubt that Yahoo actively advertises its services throughout France, and that it purposefully directs its business activities into France. In fact, on the front page of Yahoo, you can select “France” and “shopping” pull up a page full of advertisements from French retailers (in French). Yahoo is undoubtedly selling advertising space to French merchants, and no doubt does so in part based upon its demographic data involving French citizens who visit it. (It probably does so from a business office somewhere in France as well.) Under these circumstances, it hardly seems unfair to hold Yahoo accountable for content it provides that violates French law.
Yahoo has a French site, in French language, directed specifically at French people who speak French and nobody else. I do not know where the server is located but this is a French business in every regard. As per my examples above, if the situation were reversed there is no doubt that the American courts would consider it under their jurisdiction as they already have in similar cases regardless of where the server is located.
This does not deny the fact that the Internet presents new legal problems that need to be addressed but saying “screw the French” is not a good solution IMHO.
then… screw the french
besides there are plenty of other french speaking countrys, like china!!!
Nurlman, you’ve brought up an interesting point. If Yahoo! specifically targeted the French consumer with ads in France (which seems possible, if not likely), the issue isn’t as clear cut as I originally thought.
I still think I disagree with the verdict, though. Although a company shouldn’t be able to advertise a service in a country that is contrary to that country’s laws, actually providing the service to the global community via the Internet should not be curtailed.
Perhaps a better solution would be for France to have a law against advertising the service in France. That would be clearly under their jurisdiction. And their pre-existing laws should prohibit their citizens from taking part in auctions that are contrary to France’s laws.
There also the fact that Yahoo! isn’t really selling the items; the users are. Blaming Yahoo! is like blaming the Dept of Transporation when someone drives to your house to rob it, because they provided the road.
People could almost just as easily use email to sell these items. Does that make the user’s ISP responsible?
The time has come for us to begin suing each and every person outside of the united states who have any note of anti-semitism within their boundaries(I.E.–I want my chunk of change too! :D)
Onto a more serious note, Screw the French.
Sailor, even though kiddie porn is hideous, and I do not condone it, I’m pretty sure if it was run by an offshore-based corporation, and located in an offshore P.O.P.(Point of presence), they would not, could not, and should not be shut down by the US.
As far as Yahoo! having to monitor their users to “protect their collective conscious”(sounds like Star Trek to me), I must wholeheartedly disagree. If it truly means that much to protect their citizens, every gateway router in France should be utilized to filter out what “the collective” can’t bear to revisit. It’s not Yahoo!'s responsibility, especially since this site was not doubt American and NOT meant for the French audience.
Pretentious assholes.
-Sam
This is now my sig. Thank you.
I agree with Initial Entry…screw the French.
Seriously though…the French have no jurisdiction over any American-based companies. As long as it’s a legal in the US, they can’t do anything. The most they can do is maybe take away the land that Yahoo’s offices are on, which would cause a really big international ruckus. We should just go to war with France and beat some sense into them. (No, I’m not being serious about that.)
It seems to me that the relevant issue is not whether Yahoo! in general directs its business towards France, but whether the sale of Nazi items was directed towards France. Sure, if they were selling Nazi items to French buyers, that would under French jurisdiction. But if they are selling Nazi items to citizens of other countries, why would the French have any jurisdiction? Suppose a website based in Amsterdam sells various drugs. Some of them are legal in the US, and they are sold to US customers, but the site also sells cannabis, which is sold only to local customers. Can the American DEA shut them down? I don’t see how.
My brother and I discussed this very point yesterday TheRyan. The answer is no. The DEA can, however, prosecute them if they DO sell cannabis, or sell another drug that while legal, led to the harm/illnes of an American citizen.
There are thousands of websites hawking “CUban” cigars(Cuban is in quotes because a majority of them are fakes). Does the US shut them down? No. Why? because they can’t.
What the French seem to misunderstand is that although a certain type of commerce/goods are illegal in their eyes, it is not illegal in most of the rest of the world. They seem to have closed their eyes to the fact that free trade will persevere even though they are trying to disallow it.
How Myopic can you get? If I was Yahoo!, I’d pull the plug on France, close up france.yahoo.com, relinquish my property held there, not show up to court, block the range of IP addresses alotted to France, and tell them where they could stick it.
Oh, and just for good measure…Screw the french! 
-Sam
P.S.-- your welcome Initial Entry…can I get some credit on that Sig?