Germans probe Yahoo! over suspected Mein Kampf sales

Shouldn't they be finding the people who bought it?

By Linda Harrison in New York • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 27th November 2000 23:55 GMT

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Yahoo! execs are in trouble in Europe again - and this time the Germans have taken the Internet giant to task over suspected sales of Mein Kampf.

German prosecutors today said they had launched a probe into online auctions of the banned Hitler book on the Yahoo! Germany site. Unnamed execs at the California-based Web portal are under investigation regarding the auctions on two dates this year: 1 February and 19 April, Manfred Wick, a senior prosecutor the state of Munich, told Reuters.

This is the second time in a week that Yahoo! has had to wrestle with European bigwigs. Last Monday a court in France gave it 90 days to stop French surfers from accessing its sites that flog Nazi memorabilia.

"The company distances itself from Nazi philosophy," a Yahoo! Germany spokeswoman said. "On the German Yahoo! Web site 90,000 objects are on offer. As soon as Yahoo! gets information that illegal products are included, it removes them."

It is illegal to sell Nazi memorabilia in France and Germany.

Today also saw police raid Yahoo's office in Tokyo. They aimed to grab information relating to a case involving the alleged sale of child porn videos through its site.

Last week it was revealed that execs at fellow auction site eBay had been quizzed by a grand jury to determine whether they broke the law by selling guns online. ®