The Gallic gall. A French court has done the unthinkable. It has ruled that the French government has jurisdiction over cyberspace, or at least that part of the digital universe that overlaps with its physical borders.
Net libertarians are outraged. They charge that the Balkanization of the Net -- in just about every sense of that grisly metaphor -- is soon to follow. Not quite. There are dangers in excessive regulation of the Net, but they are not imminent. Nor, for that matter, do those dangers mean that there should be no regulation whatsoever. Intelligent, coordinated oversight is needed; bellicose rhetoric will only make that more difficult.
Last month, a French court ruled that Yahoo! Inc., the operator of perhaps the most popular Internet address in the world, must try to block French users from visiting its auction sites that sell Nazi memorabilia. The court reasoned that it had jurisdiction since the company had a French office, was doing business in France, its customers were French and the merchandise was illegal under French law.