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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

#211

Post by kodablah »

yorwba wrote: post #183
kodablah wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unfortunate part of that test appears to be that the private party can request the moon. A reasonable person might expect a court that is required "judge what's in front of them" to not apply their judgement to foreign jurisdictions. I wonder how this would be applied to a physical storefront from a global retailer that happened to have presence in Canada...I suppose they'd be forced to remove physical non-Canadi…

Regarding the retailer example: Suppose they have been selling counterfeit products and a Canadian court orders them to remove the product from all their stores. It would be completely justified in requiring this to happen worldwide. Allowing a modification of the order if it conflicts with law in other jurisdictions is just being generous. However, the only consequences that can be imposed for failing to follow the…

I don't think affecting a worldwide result using laws affecting companies based on your country is the same thing.

However I am curious, do you know of any example where a country ordered a company not based in their country to change something for other countries including the country they were based in? Surely there are sweatshop or other working condition examples, I just can't find any where the changes were required to apply for operation in other countries too. I suppose it would be like your answer to my hypothetical, I'm just curious if it has ever happened.

> It would be completely justified in requiring this to happen worldwide

I disagree if the company isn't based there (assuming by justification you meant to us as humans as opposed to legal justification).

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

#212

Post by labster »

michaelmrose wrote: post #142
labster wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Libel and slander laws can only be applied if you know the identity of the person who did it, and have enough money to hire an attorney to go after the person. Right now if you google my name, there's a forum out there that says I'm a child molester based on zero evidence, and the only reason it's up is because I am following my legal requirements as a website operator per the ToU to not release personally identifyin…

I have a feeling with a bit of research you could start enough of a lawsuit to convince the website to give up the information for less than $100 a few hours of work. If they were reluctant their host might well be willing to drop them to avoid being dragged into it. YOU can probably avoid thousands of dollars in costs by doing a bit of legwork they probably aren't as lucky.

The website in question is owned by the libelous one, so the first idea won't work.

As far as the host, the problem turns into the same one as the IP enforcement has: Kill one head, and two more appear. My slanderer appears to not have a job, so it's no problem for him to keep moving on and getting new hosting. And for the next host he lands on, I've made myself a real target of that website.

Half the time I feel like this is a real problem with UBI proposals -- if we let people have free time all day, a certain fraction is going to waste it with libel or gamergate or SJW stuff, where the people who actually do something with their lives get attacked for no apparent reason. Like, I'm a huge fan of UBI, but without social support for self-worth outside of paid work, it's going to create a whole new set of social problems. Still a more tractable problem than poverty, I'd hope.

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

#213

Post by dagenleg »

qb45 wrote: post #204
micael_dias wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm amazed they provide links to other search engines at the bottom of the results.

I suppose it's for convenience when yandex doesn't find what you are looking for. Don't worry, Russia isn't exactly a freedom of speech heaven and if the government had a serious issue with these other search engines they wouldn't be there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Service_for_Supervisio...

At the same time you don't see google or bing linking to other search engines. So I think linking to the competitors for your users convenience is a pretty neat thing to do, which probably irks countless top managers daily. Don't belittle that little neat touch just because it's a russian website.

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

#214

Post by jhasse »

qb45 wrote: post #192

I've never expected to use a Russian search engine to evade censorship but there we go: https://www.google.com/search?q=datalink+gw1000 https://yandex.ru/search/?text=datalink+gw1000

First time I've used Yandex and it is a perfect example why Google is still the best search engine: The Yandex site has a fixed header (wasting vertical screen space), useless animations in the footer, and Firefox showed me that it blocked Flash from running ...

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

#215

Post by kodablah »

ABCLAW wrote: post #190
kodablah wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unfortunate part of that test appears to be that the private party can request the moon. A reasonable person might expect a court that is required "judge what's in front of them" to not apply their judgement to foreign jurisdictions. I wonder how this would be applied to a physical storefront from a global retailer that happened to have presence in Canada...I suppose they'd be forced to remove physical non-Canadi…

Private parties cannot request the moon. The test for interlocutory orders is HARD to satisfy, and involves substantial expense for litigants to raise. In Canada, if you lose this motion, you're paying half your opponent's legal bills most of the time, too. You need three things to satisfy the test: 1) a serious issue to be tried 2) irreparable harm if the injunction is not granted 3) that the relief is just on the b…

It is not the previous, original decision that affects Canada only that I am concerned about. It's the global reach here. Some of their wording about Google inadvertently assisting the non-Canadian company outside Canada strike me as not understanding how the web works. I concur with the dissenters that mentioned the issue should be taken up with the other company's government (France?). It just reeks of protectionism, applied outside the country's jurisdiction because they have the leverage to do so.

> That's why the Apple v. Samsung cases are so high-stakes.

It would be like the US court told Samsung they couldn't violate Apple's US patents on phones sold in Mexico.

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

#216

Post by keithpeter »

vkou wrote: post #16
pavanky wrote: post #12

This kind of stuff should be arbitrated in an international court. Giving an authority in a single country the say on what can and can not be seen on the internet world wide is a terrible idea.

Under which legal framework? Common law? Civil law? Old Testament law? Sharia law? The framework laid out by the Constitution of the Soviet Union? The US codex of law, circa 1953? Circa 2007? Circa Citizens United? Should everyone get a chance to vote for choosing it? Should we decide based on population of respective countries? Or do a one-country-one-vote thing? Maybe one dollar of GDP, one vote? Why should Chinese…

https://www.itlos.org/

Something like this has existed since league of nations days. The model appears to be a convention which individual states accept and pass into their national laws, and then a tribunal to adjudicate on disputes about the terms of the convention - so the tribunal only sees a small number of cases. Not routine stuff.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF03195054

This page lists some of the adjudications.

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

#217

Post by downandout »

djrogers wrote: post #172
downandout wrote: post #126

I wonder if this decision can be used as a framework to kill extortion-based sites such as RipoffReport.com that Google has aided and abetted for more than a decade. That would be wonderful.

>aided and abetted I'm not sure that phrase means what you think it does... Or perhaps you simply misunderstand what Google does?

I realize that you were trying to be condescending, and you did a good job of it. However, Google has rewarded this site in particular with staggeringly high search rankings, which makes things especially sticky for the victims of the site. They have been on notice about this site and others like it for almost the entire time that they have existed [1], and have actively refused to even adjust their rankings - despite clear evidence that these sites are committing extortion. So yes, Google is aiding in the commission of the crime of extortion.

If I were to file a complaint on the site about how someone named "djrogers" is a condescending jerk on HN that broke into my house and stole my wallet, that complaint would be posted on the site within minutes with no fact checking, and then Google would rank it almost instantly at the top of their results for "djrogers". One day you might Google your username and see this complaint in the #1 position, and you would probably contact the site saying that this is absolutely false. The site's owner, Ed Magedson, would personally respond essentially saying that he has been sued many times, that he has always won, and that the report isn't going anywhere...unless you pay thousands of dollars (allegedly the fees go to "investigate" the veracity of the claims in the report, after which it will be amended or removed if found to be entirely false - but only if you pay). He will make extensive reference specifically to how well his site ranks in Google, with the implied threat that if you do not pay, anyone who Googles your name will see this defamatory information (which they will).

When you know that you are assisting in the commission of a crime, you are aiding and abetting.

[1] https://moz.com/blog/the-anatomy-of-a-ripoff-report-lawsuit

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

#218

Post by likelynew »

gpm wrote: post #97
pulse7 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> block google.com in Canada Is there precedent for ordering ISPs to block a domain like this in Canada? I note that we've always been able to access sites like pirate bay.

They can block any direct payment to google from canada.

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

#219

Post by ptaipale »

vkou wrote: post #16
pavanky wrote: post #12

This kind of stuff should be arbitrated in an international court. Giving an authority in a single country the say on what can and can not be seen on the internet world wide is a terrible idea.

Under which legal framework? Common law? Civil law? Old Testament law? Sharia law? The framework laid out by the Constitution of the Soviet Union? The US codex of law, circa 1953? Circa 2007? Circa Citizens United? Should everyone get a chance to vote for choosing it? Should we decide based on population of respective countries? Or do a one-country-one-vote thing? Maybe one dollar of GDP, one vote? Why should Chinese…

This is a fairly trivial thing compared to, say, the Paris accord about climate & emissions.

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

#220

Post by icebraining »

2preserve wrote: post #111
syshum wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except Free Speech is a Binary, and that is exactly what Canada is doing,... punishing thought crimes. >Lots of Americans like to think that as soon as you moderately curtail freedom of expression, you've crossed some threshold You have crossed a Threshold >and you're now North Korea. Nice strawman you have there..... >it's possible to have reasonable constraints on expression! Proving you do not have or support Free…

> Proving you do not have or support Free Speech, you support "Reasonably Restricted Speech" which is not the same thing See, this is exactly what I said. I didn't need to build a strawman. You did it for me. I'm free to run down the street swinging your fists, but if I swing my fist into someone's face and break their nose, that's bad. I think we can all agree on that, right? What if I told you that swinging my fist…

If I claim that red is my favorite color, but I actually prefer orange, does that I mean I get to call orange "red"?

The fact that restricting the verbal equivalent of "swinging fists into others' faces" may be a good thing doesn't mean that can be redefined as free speech, because everyone has their own idea of what these reasonable restrictions are. Free speech is free speech, even if it's in practice a bad idea.

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