Yang admitted that the service is not foolproof, however. For example, if someone in Boston were to connect to an ISP located in France, NetGeo would identify that person as a French user. For its part, Yahoo dismisses such technology as a possible solution to its French dilemma. But that isn't relevant to complying with the court's order. The representative said a much higher degree of accuracy would be required than is currently available, as well as a means for tracking the citizenship of individuals and their tastes.
French law prohibits the sale or exhibition of objects associated with racism.
A month later, a French court ordered Yahoo to block the sale of Nazi items to French citizens. Yahoo told the court that it was technically impossible to filter out these sales. Yahoo Auctions does not host any of its own merchandise. Rather, like eBay, it allows people to auction their own goods to other Yahoo users. People set the initial starting prices for their auctions and facilitate the sales of the auctioned goods.