Splintering the Internet: The Unintended Consequence of Regulation
In early 2000, two Paris-based, anti-racism groups sued Yahoo on the basis that its auction’s site was exposing French people to more than 1,000 objects of Nazi memorabilia. In May of that year, a French court confirmed the illegal nature of the sale under French law, claiming that the company had offended France’s “collective memory.” More importantly, the judge also ordered Yahoo to identify ways to block French users from its Nazi auction site or other Yahoo sites with content deemed to be racist.
