eBay bans Kate magazine sales
Auction website clamps down after copies with topless pictures were sold for €34
INTERNET auction site eBay is banning resale of copies of French magazine Closer with the topless photos of the Duchess of Cambridge.
Copies have been selling for up to €34 online.
The ban was started after eBay said it received "strong feedback from the eBay community" and the site removed any copies still for sale.
This week a French court banned the magazine from publishing more pictures or selling them on to other outlets and ordered that it hand over all digital files to the Royal Household within 24 hours or face a €10,000 penalty for every day's delay. It has now handed over the files.
Police also raided the Paris offices of Closer looking for evidence of the identity of the photographer who took the pictures of Kate sunbathing on a terrace at Viscount Linley's Chateau d'Autet in Vaucluse.
It is part of a criminal investigation demanded by the Royals to find out how the pictures were taken, although laws on the freedom of the press in France protect the confidentiality of sources.
There was no word on whether Italian magazine Chi and the Irish Daily Star which also published the pictures were affected by the eBay ban. Danish and Swedish magazines are also to print the pictures.
