This report covers the landmark 2001 ruling where a US judge found that French laws prohibiting the sale of Nazi memorabilia could not be enforced against Yahoo’s US-based servers, highlighting early conflicts in global internet jurisdiction.
I highlight the early 2000s legal double standard where US tech companies avoided foreign regulations, such as French law, while the US government asserted its power to prosecute foreign nationals for their online activities.
I shared a link to a classic 2003 Google search result for "French military victories" that suggested "French military defeats." This early example of Google bombing illustrates how search algorithms were once manipulated for political humor and internet memes.
Google began removing anti-Semitic search results on French and German domains to comply with local laws. I doubt this split-system will last and speculate on whether we'll see international internet law or improved geo-tracking to resolve conflicts.
I find it crazy that France is considering taxing computers and recording devices to compensate artists for piracy, following a similar move by Germany. This comes shortly after the French court's ruling against Yahoo regarding Nazi memorabilia.
I'm looking at the new Yahoo conversations site and the latest features in Yahoo Messenger. The update adds support for webcams, message archives, and file sharing to their instant messaging platform.