1. We cannot tell from this opinion why the French court believed it had jurisdiction to adjudicate against Yahoo!, as opposed to Yahoo! France. Look back at the discussion of the Restatement (Third) of Foreign Relations Law immediately before this case. Why might the French court have had jurisdiction over Yahoo! France? Over Yahoo!?
2. If you were sitting on the Ninth Circuit, how would you have decided the jurisdiction question? Consider both the U.S. rule of minimum contacts and the Restatement provision.
3. Notice the Court’s conclusion that the principle of comity is outweighed by its constitutional obligation to uphold the freedom of speech. Is this approach to the requirements of comity consistent with the discussion of comity in Chapter 16?
Defendant La Ligue Contre Le Racisme Et L’Antisemitisme (“LICRA”) is a French nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating anti-Semitism. Plaintiff Yahoo!, Inc. (“Yahoo!”) is a corporation organized under the laws of Delaware with its principal place of business in Santa Clara, California. . . . Yahoo! services ending in the suffix“.com,” without an associated country code as a prefix or extension (collectively, “Yahoo!’s U.S. U.S. Services”), use the English language and target users who are residents of, utilize servers based in, and operate under the laws of the United States. Yahoo! subsidiary corporations operate regional Yahoo! sites and services in 20 other nations, including, for example, Yahoo! France, Yahoo! India, and Yahoo! Spain. Each of these regional websites contains the host nation’s unique two-letter code as either a prefix or a suffix in its URL. Yahoo!’s regional sites use the local region’s primary language, target the local citizenry, and operate under local laws.