french

A Paris court has ordered eBay to pay $61 million (38.6 million euros) to luxury goods designer LVMH for allowing counterfeit merchandise to be sold on the auction site.The decision comes about a month after a French court ordered eBay to pay $30,000 to luxury goods maker Hermes for its role in the sale of fake handbags.

Hackers hit the Web site of a French magazine in an effort to influence an opinion poll about the Beijing Olympics and change the site's content.The Web site of business magazine Capital was first attacked in March, when it featured a poll asking if France should boycott the opening ceremony of the Games in China, according to publisher Jean-Joel Gurviez.

A Web site in France that allowed students to anonymously rate and name their teachers has been ordered by a court to no longer allow the practice.Teachers unions with the backing of the education ministry took the site to court, saying the personal comments were a breach of privacy and an "incitement to public disorder." The site note2be.com was created in January by French entrepreneurs, allowed students to rate and discuss their teacher's abilities.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is receiving a lot of attention online for a video in which he tells a bystander to "get lost".Sarkozy was filmed by a journalist from the newspaper Le Parisien while attending an annual farm fair in Paris on Saturday. Sarkozy went to shake a mans hand who in response said," Don't touch me, you are soiling me." Sarkozy replied while still smiling," Get lost, dumb ass."

Online retailer Amazon.com will pay 1,000 euros ($1,500) a day in fines in order to offer free shipping in France while it appeals a December court ruling that made the practice illegal. Jeff Bezos, chief executive officer of Amazon, sent an email to customers of its French Web site stating Amazon will continue to offer free shipping while waiting for the outcome of the appeal.

It is (I think) becoming public knowledge that Google has crushed all of its opponents in France - the company has a search market share of around ninety percent.  A new study is surprising, then, in that it reveals large similarities between the French versions of Google and Yahoo.

Torrents and peer-to-peer networks have had a rough couple of weeks lately. In addition to Cox and Comcast's recent blocking of torrent sites, file-sharing has been under assault in France and Canada, not to mention from billionaire Mark Cuban.

We've balked at France's attempts to shortcut Google in the past, down right made fun of them for it. But the latest search share numbers in the Land of Baguettes and Snarls (gimme a break, had to get at least one in there) show that Google is near to surpassing the 90 percent threshold.