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Canada's top court backs order for Google to remove firm's website from searches

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Re: Canada's top court backs order for Google to remove firm's website from searches

#21

Post by havetocharge »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #15
syshum wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger question is if Canada can enforce their regressive idea of Free Expression on US Service providers simply because of their presence in Canada Canada has no concept of the 1st amendment,Canada as all kinds of limits on Speech that will never be allowed under the US Constitution.

Google could comply with the Canadian court. I hope someone in the US sues them for it. Deliberately removing a site from US searches, or from searches hosted in the US is clearly an abuse of its position and unlawful. And then we can have the US Supreme Court decide whether or not the US Constitution applies to Google, or if Iran's does.

Why do you hope that an entity gets sued for something that they have not done yet?

Re: Canada's top court backs order for Google to remove firm's website from searches

#22

Post by pulse7 »

syshum wrote: post #11
kodablah wrote: post #7

A hypothetical: Company A is in country X and company B is in country Y. Country X declares on behalf of company A that company B be blocked from searches worldwide (including country Y). Country Y declares on behalf of company B that company B cannot be blocked from searches (at least in country Y). Who wins in the global context? Whichever can/will fine the most? Does this give benefits to the overly-regulating cou…

The bigger question is if Canada can enforce their regressive idea of Free Expression on US Service providers simply because of their presence in Canada Canada has no concept of the 1st amendment,Canada as all kinds of limits on Speech that will never be allowed under the US Constitution.

If Google doesn't remove this Canadian website from global searches, Canada can force Google to leave the Canadian market and even block google.com in Canada. This - of course - will not happen any time soon...

Re: Canada's top court backs order for Google to remove firm's website from searches

#23

Post by 52-6F-62 »

syshum wrote: post #11
kodablah wrote: post #7

A hypothetical: Company A is in country X and company B is in country Y. Country X declares on behalf of company A that company B be blocked from searches worldwide (including country Y). Country Y declares on behalf of company B that company B cannot be blocked from searches (at least in country Y). Who wins in the global context? Whichever can/will fine the most? Does this give benefits to the overly-regulating cou…

The bigger question is if Canada can enforce their regressive idea of Free Expression on US Service providers simply because of their presence in Canada Canada has no concept of the 1st amendment,Canada as all kinds of limits on Speech that will never be allowed under the US Constitution.

Canadian here. Would you be so kind as to elaborate on your sweeping allegation regarding free expression? As it is, this just seems like some random stab that doesn't concern the topic at hand (which has far more immediate concerns tied to it).

Section 1 of the Constitution of Canada (1982) outlines freedom of speech. Just about the only thing you can't do, outside of pursuing damages in the court system for specific cases, is stand on the street screaming "Let's kill all white/black/asian/aboriginal people right now". For that, you might land yourself in some trouble.

Re: Canada's top court backs order for Google to remove firm's website from searches

#24

Post by escapetech »

This wouldn't be the first time a government is requiring Google to modify their search results. This case parallels the "right to be forgotten" cases brought against them by the EU several years ago. There is a reason that civil liberties and human rights organizations like the ACLU are concerned about this precedent.

In the US, with the murders of unarmed civilians by law enforcement and subsequent acquittals occurring at an alarming rate with increasing public outrage, it might be only a matter of time before a court somewhere rules in the favor of a person found innocent who is suing to keep as many details of a particular murder off the Internet on the grounds that his or her constitutional rights being violated (i.e inability to find employment, friendship, etc), and companies such as Google being forced to comply with the court's rulings.

Re: Canada's top court backs order for Google to remove firm's website from searches

#25

Post by bradleyjg »

kodablah wrote: post #7

A hypothetical: Company A is in country X and company B is in country Y. Country X declares on behalf of company A that company B be blocked from searches worldwide (including country Y). Country Y declares on behalf of company B that company B cannot be blocked from searches (at least in country Y). Who wins in the global context? Whichever can/will fine the most? Does this give benefits to the overly-regulating cou…

Ultimately one company can't do business in, and be subject to the jurisdiction of, two countries whose laws require them to do opposite things.

If push really came to shove Google would leave Canada--no offices, no ad sales, no shipping physical product there. Maybe even put a clause in their ToS saying that their products couldn't be used from Canada. If they did all that and Canadian courts still tried to fine it or award damages against it then other countries' courts would refuse to enforce those rulings.

Re: Canada's top court backs order for Google to remove firm's website from searches

#26

Post by skybrian »

gdulli wrote: post #18

> Google voluntarily removed hundreds of webpages from its Canadian search results on Google.ca. But the material continued to show up on Google's global search results. > So Equustek obtained a further injunction from the court ordering Google to remove the websites from its global search results. > Google appealed and argued it was not a real party to the dispute, and that a global injunction would violate freedom…

There's a question of jurisdiction. Should any country's courts be able to restrict what happens in other countries?

Re: Canada's top court backs order for Google to remove firm's website from searches

#27

Post by vkou »

skybrian wrote: post #26
gdulli wrote: post #18

> Google voluntarily removed hundreds of webpages from its Canadian search results on Google.ca. But the material continued to show up on Google's global search results. > So Equustek obtained a further injunction from the court ordering Google to remove the websites from its global search results. > Google appealed and argued it was not a real party to the dispute, and that a global injunction would violate freedom…

There's a question of jurisdiction. Should any country's courts be able to restrict what happens in other countries?

I don't know if they should, but de-facto they can. American companies are, for instance, forbidden from doing business within Iran, North Korea, etc. Likewise, nothing stops the US from passing an enforcing a law that requires any foreign companies that do business with the US to follow US laws, even in their operations outside the US.

Re: Canada's top court backs order for Google to remove firm's website from searches

#29

Post by kodablah »

bradleyjg wrote: post #25
kodablah wrote: post #7

A hypothetical: Company A is in country X and company B is in country Y. Country X declares on behalf of company A that company B be blocked from searches worldwide (including country Y). Country Y declares on behalf of company B that company B cannot be blocked from searches (at least in country Y). Who wins in the global context? Whichever can/will fine the most? Does this give benefits to the overly-regulating cou…

Ultimately one company can't do business in, and be subject to the jurisdiction of, two countries whose laws require them to do opposite things. If push really came to shove Google would leave Canada--no offices, no ad sales, no shipping physical product there. Maybe even put a clause in their ToS saying that their products couldn't be used from Canada. If they did all that and Canadian courts still tried to fine it…

I consider this the nuclear option and one that is unlikely for a large corp if we're just talking about fines (as opposed to purely opposing laws as in my hypothetical). For a normal company if the ROI of their presence > the negative ROI of complying with orders, they will remain. My question was more targeting the public and whether they accept that more restrictive regional rulings will win out.

This also comes into play w/ recent EU rulings. With a large company, fragmenting features in location-specific ways is reasonable. But for other smaller companies, they have to weigh whether the loss of customers costs less than location-specific feature implementations.

In general, with the internet, we should err on the side of lesser regulation IMO (which can appear to favor businesses over consumers). But this has been a political discussion for ages, predating globalism.

Re: Canada's top court backs order for Google to remove firm's website from searches

#30

Post by timthelion »

shallot_router wrote: post #8
timthelion wrote: post #6

I was expecting the ruling to involve some really bad behavior such as selling misslabeled drugs or invading the privacy of private individuals. Instead it is a benign product relabling suit. IMO, product relabeling doesn't even harm the company who's products are relabeled.

Could you elaborate? I don't really know much about relabeling. The company seems to be claiming that the infringing company is selling products under company A's name when they have no actual affiliation, which sounds like ordinary fraud to me. edit: Nevermind, I misread. There is no fraud or impersonation occurring.

If the article is correct, I quote "Equustek had successfully sued another company for relabelling its products and passing them off as their own.". That means that the offending company was buying Equustek's product and putting a different sticker on them.
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