Online auction house Ebay has surrendered to a daft Frenchman who sees yellow stars as being anti-semitic.

French Ebay user Dominique Bellamy wrote to the company pointing out that during World War II the Nazis made Jews wear a yellow star on their clothes as a discriminatory mark, and now the auctioneer is making him do the same thing. Ebay uses different coloured stars to indicate rankings, of which one is yellow.

According to Tamebay, he refused to be given a yellow star, even a virtual one, because it bought back bad memories of the occupation of France by Germany during World War II. Unsurprisingly, his was the only complaint.

However Ebay should have done a bit of research before it gave into Bellamy's memories of yellow stars. The Nazis insisted that Jews place yellow hexagrams or six pointed stars on their clothing.  Ebay uses pentagrams, or five pointed stars.

On Ebay, a yellow star is the lowest of the 12-point ranking scale, with a silver shooting star representing the top score. On the company's French site the lowest rating was shown yesterday as a yellow star, but was listed as a "first star".  English language sites still have a yellow star as the lowest rank.

It seems that Ebay is so terrified of being branded anti-semitic it has forgotten that there will always be someone who thinks something daft, and that that is no reason to do what they tell you. X