Is it time for a socially responsible Internet?

2000-05-25

This week, a Paris court judged that Yahoo.com – that’s the US-based firm, not the French subsidiary of Yahoo – was in breach of French laws concerning the sale of materials with racist overtones. What is more the company has two months to prevent French surfers from accessing any auctions of Nazi memorabilia and other items deemed racist. Ouch.

Of course, this is not the first time that auction sites have been condemned from hosting the sale of unseemly stuff. In November last year, eBay was taken to task by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre about its auctions of memorabilia which “glorify the horrors of Nazi Germany”. Indeed, according to this week’s New York Post, eBay was back in the spotlight, as it removed from sale the charred remains of what was reputedly a gun salvaged from the former Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas.

At first sight it appears that auction sites are attempting to have the butter and the butter money, as they say in France. eBay does not permit Nazi memorabilia to be sold on its German eBay site, as that contravenes German law. However the Waco gun was removed from the site due to eBay’s policy on not allowing gun sales. The two cases reveal a significant difference in policy. In the Waco gun case, spokesman Kevin Pursglove was quoted as saying “eBay won't host any gun sales.” However in the case of the German memorabilia, Pursglove was quoted (this time on \link{http://www.zdnet.com, ZDNet}) as saying "We expect eBay users to adhere to the policy and guidelines of the country in which they are living. It is not our role to police compliance." So it is unclear whether eBay is prepared to take a moral stance on the items that are auctioned, or not.

What is also unclear is the matter of jurisdiction. The French law suit has effectively said that a US company is not permitted to make available materials to French citizens via the Internet. This ruling is virtually impossible to implement and, indeed, its validity is unclear. Just as it would be possible for un Francais to telephone a bid to an auction in the US, so such a bid can be made over the Internet. It is difficult to see how the auctioneer can be held responsible for the actions of the prospective bidders, particularly across international boundaries. Even if successful, it is even harder to see how such rulings can be enforced. As noted by President Clinton in the \link{http://www.mercurycenter.com, San Jose Mercury News}, trying to police the Internet is "like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall."

Ultimately, auction companies that want an international standing will require certain, globally accepted standards to be upheld. The example of eBay suggests that it is applying national laws in its offerings to individual countries, but it is applying its own (apparently Californian) moral standards across all its sites. The definition of “globally acceptable” may be a tough nut to crack – for example, even Barbie Dolls might offend the sensibilities of certain nations – but nonetheless a line has to be drawn between what is acceptable and what is not. Companies such as Yahoo and eBay may claim immunity from such standards, but if so they are not walking their own talk – Yahoo, for example, has been accused by civil liberties groups of “outing” authors of offensive postings on its chat boards (sometimes without even a complaint being made). Such companies are either proactively responsible for what is happening on their sites or they are not – they cannot have it both ways.

(First published 25 May 2000)