Yahoo! reprieve over Nazi auctions

The case is seen as an important test of internet regulation

A French judge has ordered more technical advice before deciding whether to force internet portal Yahoo! to block French users from the sites that violate national laws against promoting racial hatred.

Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez also refused to fine the firm which he had ordered on 22 May to make it "impossible" for French users to access the sites.

The case is an important test of internet regulation, and whether one country's laws can be applied to an international medium.

Yahoo!'s French site, www.fr.yahoo.com, currently offers no Nazi memorabilia, but French web surfers can access Yahoo! auction pages which routinely offer hundreds of Nazi artefacts - from Swastika flags and Nazi daggers to replicas of Zyklon B gas canisters used in Nazi death camps - through the global site.

'New threat'

Yahoo! says that although it is possible to prevent access to the Nazi sites from France, the technology used to do so is crude and can be easily by-passed by anyone with any technical know-how.

Judge Gomez set a new hearing for 6 November and said one French and two foreign experts should look into ways of blocking the sites over the next two months.

Similar cases are also unfolding in other countries, including Germany which recently banned Nazi slogans as web addresses.

German justice minister Hertha Daebler-Gmelin called such sites "a new threat to our society", and said Germany would do all it could to fight such sites, even beyond its borders.

Observers say that as the internet continues to grow the case is likely to be the first of many, and that politically there is almost certainly no universal solution.