Yahoo! is to stop carrying online auctions of Nazi artifacts and other hate-related materials.
The new restrictions, which take effect a week from Wednesday, follow November's court ruling from France requiring Yahoo! to block such items from French users.
Although Yahoo! has insisted it cannot limit access to certain geographic regions, as the French court ordered, Yahoo! may effectively comply by blocking the items from everyone.
The new guidelines will also apply to the site's classified listings and its e-commerce partners. Yahoo! search directories, chat rooms and other areas are not affected.
The senior auction producer at Yahoo!, Brian Fitzgerald, said the court order played no role in the new policy, other than to raise awareness internally and speed the decision.
"We decided we don't necessarily want to profit from items that promote hatred or glorify hatred and violence," Fitzgerald said.
He said that while some users support the trade of such items on free speech grounds, the majority of comments received by Yahoo! were in opposition.
When the new policy takes effect, Yahoo! will also begin screening items before they are listed. Computer software will reject any item that appears to violate the site's policies. Users will be able to appeal rejections to a human being.
Auction sites have typically rejected items only after they are posted.
Beginning next Wednesday, Yahoo! will also charge sellers to list an item - although it will not collect a commission on sales. Other auction sites, including eBay and Amazon, already charge for both.
The newly banned items at Yahoo! include medals, weapons, uniforms, official documents and other items that carry swastikas or other symbols associated with hate groups. They join a banned list that now includes cigarettes, live animals and used underwear.
The leading online auction site, eBay, bans hate materials only in Germany, France, Austria and Italy - countries where such items are illegal. Sellers may not ship such items there, and buyers from those countries may not bid on them.
In April, two French groups sued Yahoo! under its old policies, accusing the US company of violating French law barring the display or sale of racist material.
A French judge ruled in November that Yahoo! must prevent French users from auctions of such items, or face $13,000 a day in fines. On December 21, the company asked a US court to block the order, saying France doesn't have jurisdiction.
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