You are a lawyer working with the International Court of Justice in The Hague in the Netherlands. Your task is to review a recent decision by a U.S. judge regarding extraterritoriality. The case: French survivors of the Holocaust sued Yahoo USA because French citizens were purchasing Nazi memorabilia on Yahoo’s U.S. website. The lawsuit also charged Yahoo USA with hosting the websites of anti-Semitic groups. Although both these actions are illegal according to French law, they are permitted in the United States because of U.S. legislation protecting free speech. Because Yahoo’s French website did not violate French law, the U.S. federal judge hearing the case threw it out. The judge ruled that French law does not have the right to dictate the behavior of U.S. firms operating inside the United States. Today, the Internet can make it difficult to determine where jurisdictions begin and end.
14-5 If you had been the U.S. judge in this case, would you have ruled similarly? Explain.
14-6 What factors most influenced your decision?
14-7 Do you know of any Internet controls that companies or governments can use to stop such cases from occurring in the future?