Yahoo To Reject Hate Items, Charge For Auctions
Free Speech
1/3/2001; 5:14:57 PM 'Human rights activists on Wednesday hailed a decision by Yahoo to stamp out online auctions of Nazi artifacts following a lengthy legal battle.

'Yahoo Inc. (stock: YHOO) on Tuesday announced two big changes to its auction service: a first-ever listing fee and a much tougher policy against the sale of hate material.

'After vigorously defending a policy under which it allowed the sale of Nazi memorabilia deemed to have some historic value, Yahoo will now ban more of these items, and will add a monitoring program that automatically screens new listings for offensive content and will kick back potentially banned material for closer review. Although the stricter listing policy encompasses a broad range of items associated with groups that promote or glorify hatred and violence, Yahoo specified Nazi militaria and Ku Klux Klan memorabilia as items that would now be banned.'

So Yahoo is now going beyond the strict limits of the French ban and moving to block more "offensive" content.  I suppose you could say they are rolling with the punches.

Interesting that they are now charging.  This gives them a lot more legitimacy to make this sort of decisions... they don't have to take your money.