French Anti-Racist Group Sets Precedent In Court Action Against Yahoo!

An Anti-Racist organization located in Paris is initiating legal proceedings against the Internet portal Yahoo! due to the sale of Nazi artifacts on its website. Yahoo! operates public auctions where users can list products for sale and other users can place bids on them.

In February, the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (Licra) urged people to refrain from using Yahoo! sites as a form of protest against the inclusion of Nazi artifacts on their online auction pages. The corporation is currently pursuing legal action in a Paris court to get an injunction that would compel the California-based company to cease the sale of its products in France. Yahoo! refrains from selling such products on its French website due to the illegality of such transactions, but no such legal restrictions are in place in the United States.

In February, Yahoo! faced criticism from the Anti-Defamation League for allegedly hosting numerous websites that propagated messages from racial hate groups, such as neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Yahoo! often includes hyperlinks to white nationalist and neo-Nazi organizations as supplementary information for their news articles. While it is important to have a robust opposition to such groups, the actions undertaken by Licra are both incorrect and perilous.

Yahoo! as an Internet portal disclaims responsibility for the content found on its own website as well as the auctions it hosts. Readers submit items which are then either purchased or read by other readers. Yahoo! serves as the conduit for such items.

Licra’s request for an injunction aligns with many legal efforts targeting Internet Service Providers (ISP) and websites, to prove their accountability for material, regardless of its origin. Dr. Lawrence Godfrey recently filed a libel lawsuit against Demon Internet in the UK, resulting in a payment of £15,000 in costs. The case established a legal precedent that holds ISPs accountable for the content hosted on their servers, which encompasses forum postings and web pages generated by their members.

Legal scholars have asserted that the action carries significant ramifications that extend beyond the territorial boundaries of the United Kingdom. Essentially, this implies that an individual can take legal action against an American Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the British courts, where the laws of defamation are more favorable to the person making the claim. This legal action can be initiated due to an item published in a US newspaper that is hosted on the ISP’s website. The Licra action seeks to establish a new precedent by requiring a French court to assert jurisdiction over an American firm and compel the removal of content that may be accessed from within France.

The decision taken by Licra is profoundly incorrect, not only in terms of democratic rights but also from a political perspective. If the prohibition of the dissemination of Nazi artifacts will effectively hinder the expansion of right-wing and fascistic factions, how can we account for the observed phenomenon in France and Germany, where such legislation is in place, wherein not only have fascist movements proliferated, but also racist and anti-immigrant measures have been embraced by the mainstream political establishment?

The primary concern for socialist and progressive factions should not be limited to protesting the sale of fascist artifacts, but rather focused on devising a unified and substantial mass political movement to combat these regressive forces. The Internet’s independence is essential in this context. If the French courts have the authority to enforce a prohibition on Yahoo!’s US website regarding this matter, it will set a precedent for them and other courts to do the same in regards to other subjects. In the realm of the Internet, similar to other domains, legal measures aimed at countering right-wing influences will unavoidably be employed more forcefully against left-wing entities.

Yahoo is one of the oldest web service providers that is still in use and remains popular. Yahoo was originally launched in 1995. It was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo. The two Stanford university engineering students conceived the service to help connect people online with their passions. In this article, we’ll explore some of the history of the business as well as some of the most interesting facts surrounding this web service. 

History Of Yahoo! 

Originally, the yahoo website was named: “Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web.” The guide was set up as a directory for countless other websites and organized as a hierarchy rather than a search index of different pages. 

In April 1994, three months after the original launch, the website was renamed yahoo. Interestingly, the word yahoo was selected as a backronym to “Yet Another Hierarchically Organized Oracle.” According to the original owners the name was also selected because of it’s official meaning, as noted by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver’s Travels:

“Rude, unsophisticated, uncouth.” 

The Yahoo.com domain was officially launched on January 18, 1995. By the end of 1994, Yahoo had already received more than one million hits and the owners quickly recognized the potential of the business. 

The exclamation mark was not an original choice. Instead, the company was renamed Yahoo! Because the word was already trademarked by two other companies. 

Early Years Of Yahoo

Throughout the late 20th century, Yahoo experienced a huge level of growth and ultimately diversified into a full web portal. This resulted in various high profile acquisitions. The company was a key player in the dot-com bubble and closed at $118.75 in 2000. Unfortunately, this level of success was short-lived and it dropped to $8.11 by 2001. 

Despite the significant drop, Yahoo was one of the only surviving companies when the dot-com bubble eventually burst. After the dot-com bubble ended, Yahoo continued to grow by providing new services for their users. For instance, in 2003 the company formed an alliance with BT and in 2005 Yahoo partnered with Verizon to provide an integrated DSL service. 

From late 2002 onwards, Yahoo! Attempted to expand its market reach by acquiring various search engines, including Inktomi. 

In 2004, Yahoo! Successfully launched a paid inclusion program. This guaranteed commercial companies listings on Yahoo once payment was received. This scheme was a success. However, the scheme proved to be unpopular with both the general public as well as online marketing businesses who were reluctant to pay the cost. 

Yahoo Downsizing

The Microsoft Corporation attempted to acquire Yahoo in 2008. This acquisition was formally rejected. By 2012, Yahoo experienced the largest layoff in the company’s history, resulting in the loss of 2,000 employees or 14% of the total workforce. 

Services Available From Yahoo!

Yahoo provides a long list of services for their users. This includes:

• My Yahoo!
• Yahoo Finance
• Yahoo! Mail
• Yahoo! Movies
• Yahoo! News
• Yahoo Search

My Yahoo!

This is a start page that combines various personalized yahoo features as well as content feeds and information. The service was originally launched in 1996. Upon its launch it was one of the most popular creations of the business. 

The purpose of this page is to provide users with the opportunity to fully personalize their pages and gain more from their time on Yahoo. Personalization options include appearance, as well as the layout and the overall content displayed. Users can choose to apply different themes, add various widgets or rearrange the layout of tabs that are displayed on the page. The MyYahoo page also acts as a home hub.

It is designed to ensure that users can access everything they need including all the Yahoo services from one clear location. Social networking links, lottery numbers and much more all appear on the main page. Furthermore, many popular websites provide an Add to MyYahoo option. Users are also able to link MyYahoo to Yahoo! Answers. 

Yahoo! Mail

Yahoo Mail is an email service offered directly through the company. As of 2017 there were more than 225 million active monthly users on the service. It was originally launched in October 1997. The service is free for personal use. However, there are also a variety of alternatively paid features. Originally Business email was available through Yahoo. However, in 2022, this migrated to Verizon small business essentially. 

Through the service users are able to access their mailbox either through the webmail interface or through a typical web browser. From 2015 onwards, users are also able to connect the service with non-Yahoo email accounts through the webmail client. New users now receive yahoo.com as the email suffix. In the past, there were more options including regional suffixes and variations such as ymail.com. 

Yahoo received a brand redesign in 2002 and this included changes to Yahoo Mail. Some of the changes were:

• Drop down menus in DHTML
• New category tags
• User-customizable colors schemes 

Yahoo mail increased its mailbox storage in response to Google providing their Gmail users with 1 GB of free storage. From 2007 until 2013, Yahoo provided users with unlimited mail storage. 

Yahoo Mail has been embroiled in several high profile controversies. In December 2013, the business suffered a significant outage where 1% of users were not able to access their email for several days. This results in a public apology by CEO Marissa Mayer. 

In 2014, there was also news of a significant hack which resulted in an undisclosed number of Yahoo Mail usernames and passwords becoming available on the dark web. This was the result of a security breach. 

Yahoo Finance

Yahoo Finance is a media property and another key part of the yahoo network. Users can access this element to explore financial news and data as well as stock quotes, press releases and full financial support. 

In 2017, Yahoo added a feature which allowed users to explore the news surrounding the cryptocurrency market. Upon writing this article, the website provides news on more than 9,000 unique coins including popular options such as Ethereum and Bitcoin. 

Yahoo! Search

Yahoo! Search in the company’s search provider. It utilizes the Microsoft Bing search engine to provide the results. Aside from four years where the company partnered with Google, the search engine has always been powered by Bing. 

Yahoo! Search has been criticized in the past for favoring websites owned by the previous parent company of the business, Verizon Media. 

People often assume that Yahoo search is largely ignored by online users. However, this is not the case. There are more than 204 million users of Yahoo search in the US alone. Similarly, 700 million users had visited at least one of Yahoo’s many pages. People also continue to search using Yahoo on their phones over other search engines including Google. Indeed, there are various data surveys which suggest that a large percentage of people favor Yahoo over Google and will specifically type in the yahoo domain when completing a search. 

Yahoo Search is by far the most valuable segment of the business. Indeed, in 2016, the search portal accounted for over 50% of the total revenue acquired through the business. 

Significant Growth

 

Since opening on the market, Yahoo has acquired numerous businesses including:

• GeoCities 
• Flicker 
• Tumblr

In 2008, the website was also the most visited in the U.S. However, since then it has fallen behind the likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon, and YouTube. Despite this, Yahoo is still considered to be one of the most popular active websites in the U.S today. It is also popular in countries such as India. 

In 2012, Marrissa Mayer was appointed as the new CEO of the business. Mayer served as CEO up to 2017 and is credited with revitalizing the brand. She brought new talent to the company and launched a wealth of fresh products including Yahoo Weather and Yahoo News Digest. 

Facts About Yahoo

Here are some of the most interesting facts about Yahoo that you may not be aware of. 

Verizon Didn’t Purchase All Of Yahoo

It is widely known that Yahoo was purchased by Verizon in 2016. However, a common misconception is that the business purchased all of the company. In 2016. This is not the case. Some of the subsidiaries of the business merged together to form a new separate company known as Yahoo: Altaba. 

Yahoo Shopping Services 

The company also provides various shopping services that users can access. Examples include Yahoo Shopping and Yahoo Real Estate. Originally, the business also offered Yahoo Auctions, however this was discontinued due to low levels of traffic. 

Yahoo Provided A Photo Sharing Service

Originally, Yahoo provided an individual photo sharing service. This was launched in 2000 and available exclusively to Yahoo users. The service provided users with the ability to file their photos in online albums and organize them using a list of available categories. They could also select specific privacy settings, easily determining who is able to view different photos. The service was available with unlimited levels of storage space however photos could only be stored in jpeg format. The service was merged with Flickr after the business was acquired by Yahoo in 2005. 

Yahoo and Facebook 

Yahoo was once involved in a significant dispute with Facebook. In 2012, the company claimed that Facebook violated at least 10 of its patents. Facebook denied this and ultimately launched a countersuit against Yahoo. Since this issue was settled out of court, it is difficult to ascertain the full facts of the case. 

Yahoo and Google 

A little known fact about Yahoo is that the company missed out on purchasing Google – twice. In 1998, the founders of Google attempted to sell the company for just $1 million. They wanted to fund their continued education at stanford. Yahoo ignored the proposal completely. The duo attempted to sell the company again in 2002 for 5 billion. Yahoo deemed this to be an extortionate amount and refused the purchase outright. Google is now worth more than $1 trillion. Of course, there’s no guarantee that the business would ever have reached this level of success if Yahoo had deemed it to be important enough to purchase. 

Who Uses Yahoo?

Another common assumption about Yahoo is that it’s favored either by the younger or older generation. However, this depends on which Yahoo service you are referring to. According to the latest data, 31% of Yahoo Mail users were over the age of 65. In contrast, only 19% of users in the 20’s relied on it for their emails. This isn’t too surprising as Yahoo remains one of the oldest online providers. Google in comparison falls at the other end of the spectrum. 61% of the 18-29 age group prefer Gmail. 

Another interesting note about Yahoo users is that men seem to prefer it over women. Approximately 54% of users exploring Yahoo search on a daily basis are mail. On the other hand, Google is largely favored by women. 

Yahoo Today 

While the company has experienced ups and downs since launching several decades ago, the Yahoo website and the company in its entirety still remains successful. The revenue of Yahoo currently comes to somewhere around $5.15 billion. Furthermore, the business employs more than 7000 people and more than 200 million users explore Yahoo every day. As well as this 26 billion emails pass through Yahoo on a daily basis. In 2019, the website was ranked as the 10th most popular domain on the internet by Alexa.

It is also worth noting that ‘yahoo mail’ was tenth in the top search terms on Google through 2021 while “yahoo” was 12th with more than 341 million searches.  While falling short of other similar services such as Google, Yahoo remains a significant element of the online industry, useful for both businesses and general users alike.