1. Why did Yahoo! choose to obtain a declaratory judgment from a U.S. court rather than appeal the ruling in the French courts?
2. In effect, isn’t the U.S. court ruling that the U.S. Constitution protects American companies even when they do business in a foreign country that does not recognize the concepts embodied by the First Amendment?

Yahoo! monitors the transactions in their global auction site through limited regulation prohibiting particular items being sold and informs auction sellers that they must comply with Yahoo!’s policies and may not offer items to buyers in jurisdictions in which the sale of such items violates the jurisdiction’s applicable laws. Yahoo! does not actively regulate the content of each posting and individuals have posted highly offensive memorabilia, including Nazi objects. LICRA and French Citizens, organizations dedicated to eliminating anti-Semitism, filed suit against Yahoo! in France based on a French law banning the sale of Nazi and Third-Reich-related goods through auction services. Though the French court concluded that the Yahoo.com auction site violated French Criminal Code, Yahoo! contends that such a ban would infringe impermissibly upon its right under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and filed a lawsuit in a U.S. federal court seeking a declaratory judgment that the French court’s orders are neither cognizable nor enforceable under the laws of the U.S.