French Court Orders Study of Ways to Block Yahoo Site

In a legal battle over who should be held responsible for online racism, a court called Friday for a team of experts to examine ways of blocking French Internet users from U.S. portal Yahoo’s auction site. A lawyer for Yahoo Inc. called the action reasonable.

The case began in April, when two Paris-based human rights groups filed suit against Yahoo for hosting auctions of Nazi objects, including Nazi medallions, swastika-emblazoned battle flags and other Third Reich paraphernalia.

In France it is illegal to sell or exhibit anything that incites racism, but the U.S. Constitution’s protection of free speech allows the expression of racist or extremist ideas. Yahoo is based in Santa Clara.

Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez ruled in May that Yahoo had offended France’s “collective memory.” He ordered the company to pay fines to the two human rights groups that sued--the International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism and the Union of Jewish Students of France.

Gomez also ordered Yahoo to find a way to block French users from the U.S.-based Web pages in question. On Friday, he put off any decisions on that matter and called for a team of three experts to study ways to identify Web users by origin and filter French users from the site.