The ITAA is a body that seeks to provide global public policy,
business networking, and national leadership to promote the
continued rapid growth of the IT industry. It consists of 400
direct and 26,000 affiliate corporate members throughout the US and
a global network of 41 countries' IT associations.
On Monday, Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez ordered Yahoo! to restrict
internet users in France from accessing pages on its US site that
include material in breach of French anti-racism laws.
“No one should confuse the horrors of the Nazi period with
critical rights to free speech that this ruling impacts,” said ITAA
President Harris Miller. “This ruling sets a dangerous precedent
for governments like the Chinese that are also taking moves to
limit access to internet content."
Miller said the ITAA is troubled by any attempt to “zone” the
internet to make it acceptable to particular jurisdictions or to
block content access by internet users in particular countries.
The managing director of Yahoo! France has said that “Anyone
putting content on the internet, as of now, is going to have to
make sure it is compliant with at least 180 countries’ laws around
the world.” A Yahoo! lawyer questioned, “Just because you put up a
web site, are you responsible for all the laws of all the countries
in the world, and not just the ones you are targeting?”
Yahoo! argues that it did not target the French market, pointing
to the fact that its French site, yahoo.fr, bans auctions of Nazi
material in accordance with French law. The company has not yet
announced whether it will appeal the ruling.
