The ruling came about after Yahoo! was sued last year in France by anti-racist groups for allowing Nazi memorabilia to be sold on its auction pages.
A French judge ordered Yahoo! to prevent French users from having access to these pages -- despite the company explaining it would be technically impossible for them to do this.
Since then, Yahoo! has banned hate-related items from its auction pages. However, it sought the US court ruling to ensure that other countries do not have jurisdiction over content produced by US internet companies in the US.
Now, US federal judge Jeremy Fogel has ruled that the First Amendment of the US constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech, protects content generated in the US by American companies and it can not be regulated by other countries with different laws.
eBay, Yahoo!'s larger online auction rival, has also banned Nazi-related items from its auctions as of May this year. Prior to that, French- or German-language browsers were not allowed access to pages featuring these items.
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