U.S. business groups back Yahoo! in tussle with French court

August 14, 2001

 

(From Declan McCullagh’s Politech – http://www.politechbot.com/p-02390.html)

 
Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 13:39:22 -0400
From: ari@cdt.org
Subject: Industry Groups Rally to Oppose French Court Ruling Against Yahoo
 
Industry Groups Rally to Oppose French Court Ruling Against Yahoo
 
CDT Applauds Friend of the Court Filing in Yahoo v. LICRA
 
A range of major business organizations and Internet industry associations have this week filed a brief supporting Yahoo's legal challenge to a French court ruling that raises fundamental issues of jurisdiction in cyberspace.  The brief, filed last week in US District Court in California in the case of Yahoo! Inc. v. LICRA, argues that US courts may not enforce judgments of foreign courts that lack personal jurisdiction over US defendents.  Under the French court's thoery of personal jurisidiction, every American company
with an Internet presence would be subject to the personal jurisdiction of every foreign country in the world.  Not only would such a result be inconsistent with the law, it would be devastating to the development of the Internet.
 
Industry groups filing include the United States Chamber of Commerce, the United States Council for International Business, the Information Technology Association of America, the Online Publishers Association, the United States Information Industry Association, and the Commercial Internet eXchange.
 
CDT, which filed an earlier friend of the court brief in April on First Amendment grounds with a broad group of publishers and nonprofit groups, applauds this industry effort.  "This industry brief underscores the crippling effect that the French court ruling would have on the Internet and electronic commerce.  Countries should not be able to haul foreign Internet users into their courts simply for publishing a Web site alone," said Alan Davidson, Associate Director of CDT.
 
The next hearing in this case is scheduled for August 26.  A hearing on Yahoo's motion for summary judgment is scheduled for September 24.
 
Background of the Yahoo! v. LICRA Case
 
Last year, a French court ruled that Yahoo in the US, by allowing its Web site to be accessed from France, ran afoul of France's law criminalizing the exhibition or sale of racist materials.  The court specifically directed Yahoo to re-engineer its servers in the United States and elsewhere to enable them to recognize French Internet Protocol addresses and block their access to material that violated French hate speech laws.  It also required Yahoo to ask users with "ambiguous" IP addresses to declare their nationality when they arrive at Yahoo's home page or when they initiate a search using the word "Nazi."
 
Yahoo! has filed a lawsuit in US court asking for a declaratory judgment that the foreign verdict is unenforceable in the US.  Yahoo argued that US courts should refuse to enforce the French judgment because it contravenes fundamental US policy, including, the strong protection of free speech offered by the First Amendment.  Yahoo pointed out that freedom of expression is recognized not only in the United States as a fundamental constitutional right, but also under international law.
 
CDT is following the case closely.  In April, CDT filed a "friend of the court" brief in support of Yahoo, joined by the American Association of Publishers, the Freedom to Read Foundation, the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, People for the American Way, the Society of Professional Journalists, and others, arguing that holding Web publishers in one country liable for simply publishing material that may be considered inappropriate when viewed by citizens of another country would chill free expression and commerce on the Internet.
 
In June, federal court in California in June denied a motion to dismiss Yahoo's complaint.  The decision opened the way for the US court to take up the merits of Yahoo's claim that the French court exceeded its jurisdiction. The US court's opinion indicated that those who seek to use the foreign courts to control US-based Web sites will face legal challenges to enforcement of those judgments.
 
For more information, see the CDT policy post Vol. 7, No. 6 on this subject at http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_7.06.shtml.