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What You Sell Online in France Could Be Restricted…
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The White House put in place additional downloading restrictions about a year ago after learning that a number of employees had been downloading porn around that time. Employees must now also adhere to a “strict no photo policy”, meaning that sending any photos — even baby pictures — is forbidden. “Our firewalls now delete any attachment”, said Siewart. “We regularly change and modify our security and firewall”, Siewart said.“That’s just the nature of cybersecurity. As you discover more sites people are using, we essentially block more sites. It’s ongoing work.”
What You Sell Online in France Could Be Restricted… Yahoo! Inc. faces a potentially groundbreaking ‘Web war’ ruling in a Paris court, where anti-racist groups want huge fines imposed unless Yahoo! blocks online sales of Nazi memorabilia. Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez has created unease in the burgeoning Internet world by ordering the US portal and its French-language affiliate to prevent Web surfers in France from tapping into auctions of items such as the Zyklon B gas canisters used in World War II death camps. After asking experts to assess an argument by Yahoo! that his May 22 ruling was impossible to implement, Gomez is scheduled to issue his final verdict soon. The Paris-based International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA) and the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF) have urged Gomez to fine Yahoo! in the United States and France up to 400 000 euros ($360 000) a day if the companies fail to comply immediately.“For us, this kind of sale is absolutely immoral, obnoxious and heinous”, LICRA spokesman Marc Knobel told Reuters. “What we want is at least a show of goodwill from Yahoo! towards the sensitivities of other countries (than the US).” Yahoo! France, which is responsible for the Frenchlanguage version of the California-based Yahoo! business, declined to comment ahead of the ruling. French law prohibits the sale or exhibit of objects with racist overtones and none are directly available or visible on the Yahoo.fr site. But with just a few clicks, a Web user
can transfer from the French to English-language Yahoo.com sites, where auctions offer access to hundreds of items, such as Nazi uniforms and medals, or neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan material.Yahoo!’s lawyers say they only offer a medium through which people buy and sell on the Internet and that it is technically impossible to filter a worldwide system where national boundaries are virtually non-existent. Following Gomez’s ruling in May,Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang said it was wrong to think one country’s problems could initiate an Internet ban for other parts of the world. “Asking us to filter access to our sites according to the nationality of Web surfers is very naïve”, he said at the time. That contention was echoed by Jean Olive, an Internet security expert for the French consultants EdelWeb, who said, “It’s impossible to make access impossible.” It is technically possible for portals, such as Yahoo!, to check a surfer’s nationality through an Internet address and block access to those of French origin, even if that means reconfiguring Yahoo! applications. But users could avoid that by connecting over a US computer, according to Olive. In such a case, only the intermediary PC’s provider address would be recognized. In addition, a US firm in Paris could assign US addresses to its overseas staff, who would subsequently not be seen as French. Some authoritarian countries already censor or limit Internet access drastically. But governments in established democracies are less sure of how or where to set limits. Yahoo! fears the French case could set a precedent. “The Paris court has dropped a bomb on the Web by condemning Yahoo!” the company’s managing director in France, Philippe Guillanton, said in May. “The point is whether we want to condemn the Internet to be closed in the same way that the media have traditionally been closed by frontiers.” LICRA’s Knobel, however, said free speech provisions of the US Constitution allow racist groups to express their views, but the Internet should not extend that degree of tolerance to other democratic countries. “In France, like most European democracies, there are laws against racism — unlike America”, Knobel said. “Most other countries should not be obliged to sign up to US practices.”
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Computers & Security, Vol. 19, No. 6
The White House put in place additional downloading restrictions about a year ago after learning that a number of employees had been downloading porn around that time. Employees must now also adhere to a “strict no photo policy”, meaning that sending any photos — even baby pictures — is forbidden. “Our firewalls now delete any attachment”, said Siewart. “We regularly change and modify our security and firewall”, Siewart said.“That’s just the nature of cybersecurity. As you discover more sites people are using, we essentially block more sites. It’s ongoing work.”
What You Sell Online in France Could Be Restricted… Yahoo! Inc. faces a potentially groundbreaking ‘Web war’ ruling in a Paris court, where anti-racist groups want huge fines imposed unless Yahoo! blocks online sales of Nazi memorabilia. Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez has created unease in the burgeoning Internet world by ordering the US portal and its French-language affiliate to prevent Web surfers in France from tapping into auctions of items such as the Zyklon B gas canisters used in World War II death camps. After asking experts to assess an argument by Yahoo! that his May 22 ruling was impossible to implement, Gomez is scheduled to issue his final verdict soon. The Paris-based International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA) and the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF) have urged Gomez to fine Yahoo! in the United States and France up to 400 000 euros ($360 000) a day if the companies fail to comply immediately.“For us, this kind of sale is absolutely immoral, obnoxious and heinous”, LICRA spokesman Marc Knobel told Reuters. “What we want is at least a show of goodwill from Yahoo! towards the sensitivities of other countries (than the US).” Yahoo! France, which is responsible for the Frenchlanguage version of the California-based Yahoo! business, declined to comment ahead of the ruling. French law prohibits the sale or exhibit of objects with racist overtones and none are directly available or visible on the Yahoo.fr site. But with just a few clicks, a Web user
can transfer from the French to English-language Yahoo.com sites, where auctions offer access to hundreds of items, such as Nazi uniforms and medals, or neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan material.Yahoo!’s lawyers say they only offer a medium through which people buy and sell on the Internet and that it is technically impossible to filter a worldwide system where national boundaries are virtually non-existent. Following Gomez’s ruling in May,Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang said it was wrong to think one country’s problems could initiate an Internet ban for other parts of the world. “Asking us to filter access to our sites according to the nationality of Web surfers is very naïve”, he said at the time. That contention was echoed by Jean Olive, an Internet security expert for the French consultants EdelWeb, who said, “It’s impossible to make access impossible.” It is technically possible for portals, such as Yahoo!, to check a surfer’s nationality through an Internet address and block access to those of French origin, even if that means reconfiguring Yahoo! applications. But users could avoid that by connecting over a US computer, according to Olive. In such a case, only the intermediary PC’s provider address would be recognized. In addition, a US firm in Paris could assign US addresses to its overseas staff, who would subsequently not be seen as French. Some authoritarian countries already censor or limit Internet access drastically. But governments in established democracies are less sure of how or where to set limits. Yahoo! fears the French case could set a precedent. “The Paris court has dropped a bomb on the Web by condemning Yahoo!” the company’s managing director in France, Philippe Guillanton, said in May. “The point is whether we want to condemn the Internet to be closed in the same way that the media have traditionally been closed by frontiers.” LICRA’s Knobel, however, said free speech provisions of the US Constitution allow racist groups to express their views, but the Internet should not extend that degree of tolerance to other democratic countries. “In France, like most European democracies, there are laws against racism — unlike America”, Knobel said. “Most other countries should not be obliged to sign up to US practices.”
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