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Google can be forced to pull results globally, Canada supreme court rules

theguardian.com

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Re: Google can be forced to pull results globally, Canada supreme court rules

#31

Post by ksk »

jacksmith21006 wrote: post #27
ksk wrote: post #10

Its interesting that Google is making a 'freedom of expression' argument when they themselves heavily censor YouTube content. Google controls the platform their users use, and the Government controls the 'platform' that both companies and users use. I suppose nobody cares about the users in both cases.

Google has left the content and is paying the infrastructure cost for the content. No advertisers so they demonetized. That is not the same as censoring.

> That is not the same as censoring.

That is just one case. There are other cases of youtube/google banning peoples accounts. In any case, the person I replied to was equating de-indexing with censoring.

Re: Google can be forced to pull results globally, Canada supreme court rules

#32

Post by dragonwriter »

turc1656 wrote: post #18

So what happens when, for example, a US court or a court of some other jurisdiction in another country rules that their free speech laws say that a court cannot legally force them to pull results globally? What do they do then? I assume that since the US/other court wouldn't be forcing them, they would default to pulling it since Canada can apparently force them to do so, so pulling the data is mandatory in Canada bu…

> So what happens when, for example, a US court or a court of some other jurisdiction in another country rules that their free speech laws say that a court cannot legally force them to pull results globally?

More interesting is when one sovereignty prohibits and imposes sanctions on behavior mandated with sanctions for non-compliance by another sovereignty. With various states adopting broad mandates for data retention while others are adopting mandates for removal, there are likely going to be circumstances where those conflict.

Re: Google can be forced to pull results globally, Canada supreme court rules

#33

Post by Analemma_ »

gruez wrote: post #30
Nomentatus wrote: post #26

Yes, the Canadian courts understand precisely how the internet works... through Canadian ISPs who can be forced block traffic from some companies and not others. The point of the ruling could be summarized this way: "If you wish to do business in Canada, with a web business that's visible in Canada, then there are certain practices you can't be guilty of elsewhere or in general." This isn't new. For example, it is co…

>but yes the principle is logically coherent and enforceable. sounds great and all until oppressive regimes use this to do censor content they don't like. how long until russia/china/iran sends a rubberstampped a court order to censor a politcal candidate's advertisements because [made up reason]?.

They're going to do that anyway. Why should Canada abandon its own national sovereignty because of the actions of dictators on the other side of the world that would happen regardless?

Re: Google can be forced to pull results globally, Canada supreme court rules

#35

Post by dragonwriter »

dsacco wrote: post #29
dragonwriter wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One nation does NOT have the authority to dictate what a company can do outside of it's borders and concerns. The actually do, that's inherent in the nature of sovereignty. You can eliminate the practical effect of that by adopting a single shared global sovereign regime, but that idea is controversial even in the abstract, and in concrete detail even moreso, as those who agree that such a thing is desirable disagr…

Do you mean that sovereignty grants that authority in principle, or in actuality? If the United States doesn't enforce the demands of another country with respect to a company in its borders, the company can freely ignore those demands. That various countries choose to have treaties enforcing the demands of others seems to be less about sovereignty and more about good relations. For example, Germany ordered Project G…

> Do you mean that sovereignty grants that authority in principle, or in actuality?

Yes, both.

> If the United States doesn't enforce the demands of another country with respect to a company in its borders, the company can freely ignore those demands.

The authority to legislate and the ability to impose consequences are two different things. It is, for instance, indisputable that the US has authority to criinalize tax fraud by it's citizens occuring within the US, but if a tax fraudster escapes to a foreign country with all their possessions before the US catches them, and that country is uninterested in assisting the US, the US may well find it practically impossible to enforce sanctions without engaging in interstate conflict.

The only difference with the situation at hand is that an act committee overseas by a foreign entity is more likely to be difficult to sanction since flight for the purpose of evasion is less likely to be necessary (OTOH, if the offender has any contact with the offended jurisdiction, they are still at risk, and being g ofrced to avoid the jurisdiction to avoid sanctions may itself be a kind of sanction.)

Re: Google can be forced to pull results globally, Canada supreme court rules

#36

Post by bryanlarsen »

asdfologist wrote: post #7

Is this even enforceable?

Google sells over $2B worth of advertising to Canadians every year, plus a bunch of phones and other services. If they're not willing to abandon that revenue, it's certainly very enforceable.

Re: Google can be forced to pull results globally, Canada supreme court rules

#37

Post by Analemma_ »

turc1656 wrote: post #18

So what happens when, for example, a US court or a court of some other jurisdiction in another country rules that their free speech laws say that a court cannot legally force them to pull results globally? What do they do then? I assume that since the US/other court wouldn't be forcing them, they would default to pulling it since Canada can apparently force them to do so, so pulling the data is mandatory in Canada bu…

> So what happens when, for example, a US court or a court of some other jurisdiction in another country rules that their free speech laws say that a court cannot legally force them to pull results globally?

The endpoint of all this, which I now believe is basically inevitable in the long run, is Balkanization of the internet: eventually, Google and/or Canadian ISPs will only let Canadian users reach google.ca (with its modified results), and not google.com. The same will go for every other country.

This is the only way to square the two opposing aims of not letting countries censor the internal globally, but still let them have sovereignty within their borders and have their decisions enforced. I'm not happy about that, but I don't see any other way around the issue. Continuing with the status quo essentially means sovereignty is dead and everyone now just has America's speech laws whether they like it or not. Even if that's what HN wants, it's just not going to happen.

Re: Google can be forced to pull results globally, Canada supreme court rules

#38

Post by patmcc »

dsacco wrote: post #29
dragonwriter wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One nation does NOT have the authority to dictate what a company can do outside of it's borders and concerns. The actually do, that's inherent in the nature of sovereignty. You can eliminate the practical effect of that by adopting a single shared global sovereign regime, but that idea is controversial even in the abstract, and in concrete detail even moreso, as those who agree that such a thing is desirable disagr…

Do you mean that sovereignty grants that authority in principle, or in actuality? If the United States doesn't enforce the demands of another country with respect to a company in its borders, the company can freely ignore those demands. That various countries choose to have treaties enforcing the demands of others seems to be less about sovereignty and more about good relations. For example, Germany ordered Project G…

>>>the company can freely ignore those demands

>>>If Germany sent me a personal letter demanding I cease and desist, I'd ignore it.

You (presumably) don't do any business in Germany, or really care about their government being unhappy with you, which is pretty reasonable. Google wants to keep doing business in Canada, so they have to play ball. Can Canada send people into the US offices of google to enforce any of this? Of course not. But can they shut down google in Canada if it refuses to abide by court orders? You bet. (I doubt it'll come to that though)

Re: Google can be forced to pull results globally, Canada supreme court rules

#39

Post by GCU-Empiricist »

mattsfrey wrote: post #4

This needs to be rejected whole sale. One nation does NOT have the authority to dictate what a company can do outside of it's borders and concerns. The censorship issues that have been cropping up lately in these regards are appalling. The "hate speech" legislature of many EU nations comes to mind. If that insanity were to be enforced "world wide" it's seriously time for new service providers to step up that aren't s…

So this is lawfare between a company that makes something and a company purported to have stolen their design. I guess the question that really would make it interesting is what country is the purported design thief in?

Re: Google can be forced to pull results globally, Canada supreme court rules

#40

Post by sp332 »

tw04 wrote: post #21
jerf wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your question at the moment is ill-defined. Carefully expand out the nationalities of the "you" who is buying the info, the nationalities of the person whom the info is about, the nationality of the subsidiary from which the information is being purchased, and the nationality under which you believe they should be suable. ("Jurisdiction", if you prefer, may replace "nationality".) There's a lot of combinations in the…

Chinese subsidiary, Chinese buyer, US citizen.

How would the Chinese subsidiary get the info about the US citizen?
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