US embassy cable - 05PARIS2512

UNCLAS PARIS 002512 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EUR/WE, EUR/OHI AND EB/CIP 
 
E.O.  12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECPS, KJUS, FR 
SUBJECT: FRANCE: APPEALS COURT UPHOLDS DECISION CLEARING 
YAHOO 
 
Ref: (A) 03 Paris 1138 
 
     (B) Paris 2040 
 
1. Summary:  In the most recent development in the on-going 
legal dispute between Yahoo Inc. and French anti-racism 
groups, a French court exonerated former Yahoo CEO Timothy 
Koogle of responsibility for providing links to now-defunct 
internet auctions of Nazi paraphernalia. End summary. 
 
2. A ruling delivered on April 6 by a Paris appeals court 
upheld a lower court's 2003 ruling (ref A) that cleared 
former Yahoo CEO Timothy Koogle of charges that promoted the 
sale of Nazi paraphernalia in France via Yahoo action 
websites based in the U.S.  The sale or display of Nazi- 
related items is banned in France, and Yahoo's French 
subsidiary, Yahoo France, has complied with this law. 
However, the French Yahoo website provided links to the 
American version of the site, which formerly contained 
auction pages for Nazi items.  French human rights groups 
requested that Yahoo block French users from accessing the 
Nazi content on the American site; Yahoo responded that this 
was impractical.  As a result, a lawsuit was brought against 
Koogle and Yahoo in 2000 by two French groups, the League 
Against Racism and Antisemitism and the Union of Jewish 
Students of France.  The ensuing legal dispute has lasted 
for five years. 
 
3.  Koogle left Yahoo in 2001 and recently became CEO of the 
internet networking company Friendster.  A lower court 
ruling absolved him or wrongdoing in 2003, a decision that 
was upheld in the most recent decision by the Paris appeals 
court.  Oliver Metzner, the lawyer representing Koogle, 
stated, "This judgment confirms that Koogle and Yahoo have 
always respected French law."  Nazi-related items have since 
been banned from the auction pages of the American Yahoo 
website as a matter of corporate policy.  However, Charles 
Korman, a lawyer representing the League Against Racism and 
Antisemitism stated that the ruling would be appealed to the 
Cour de Cassation, the Supreme Court for French civil cases. 
The appeals court decision can only be overturned by the 
Supreme Court on formal legal grounds, in which case the 
suit would begin again at the lower court.  Despite Korman's 
recent statement, there has been no indication that the 
necessary legal grounds exist for the Cour de Cassation to 
review the case. 
 
4.  Comment:  Some in France have argued that, in the eyes 
of the U.S., they can do no right, criticized both for 
recent increases in anti-Semitic acts (reftel B) as well as 
for impeding free speech when attempting to combat what they 
view as a legitimate cause of the phenomenon: internet hate 
sites and internet auctions of nazi paraphernalia.  The way 
the Yahoo case has gone to date, it appears that the courts 
are not inclined to impede free speech, at least not with 
respect to Internet content originating outside the European 
Union.  Post recalls that in mid-2004, two Assistant U.S. 
Attorneys General spoke on the issue at an OSCE conference 
in Paris on the relationship between racist, xenophobic, and 
anti-Semitic hate crimes and the internet.  One stated, 
"Government efforts to regulate bias-motivated speech on the 
Internet are fundamentally mistaken."  Fortunately, this 
latest (and probably final) round of the Yahoo case does not 
cross this boundary.  End comment. 
 
LEACH