Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

61–70 of 75 posts

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

#61
post #6

Terrible ruling, do they even understand how the internet works? Oh well, when you're a global company, this is the BS you have to deal with.

I'd say that yes, they do. There's little point in removing the results from google.ca and not google.com.

There's little point in removing search results for DataLink from Google results worldwide when they could enjoin DataLink from selling any of the products in question.

According to the article, Google is not even a party in the lawsuit.

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

#62
post #38
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

You have the actual solution, in fact. How long does anyone think a Canadian supreme court decision could stand if Google ceases operations in Canada?

I suppose they could stand up a Baidu-like Canadian Google replacement, but it would take a while.

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

#63

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.

Depends. What happens to Google's worldwide revenue when they set the precedent of removing information based on one country's legal findings. They have previously shut down most of their services in China, which seems like it would be a bigger market.

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

#64
So, Company A sues Company B. The Canadian courts enjoin Company B from selling the products in question. Company B ignores the injunction. The Canadian courts, because they can't think of anything better to do, request Google to remove all evidence of Company B from their results.

One wonders if Bing/DDG/etc. also received such requests?

(Apparently not (https://screenshots.firefox.com/NshX8iyFXX3vMJFY/www.bing.co... the datatechgateways link doesn't seem to be in Google's results.)

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

#65
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

It's going to be a lot harder for Google to refuse global censorship orders from countries you don't like when it's routinely taking global censorship orders from countries you like.

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

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying it's impossible for Google to block some results globally? Because even if I may agree with the sentiment, I don't see how technology is the problem here–differences in law are. And if technology were the problem, that'd be the weakest possible argument. Where ever possible, technology need to evolve to serve what society (democratically) decides. You and I may not agree with this specific decision, bu…

> "Where ever possible, technology need to evolve to serve what society (democratically) decides. You and I may not agree with this specific decision, but the process that created it is still far more legitimate than whatever Google or, in other cases, two guys and a compiler come up with. " Freedom , to the greatest extent possible, is what matters. Invoking 'the legitimacy of process' really makes me cringe here as…

> Freedom, to the greatest extent possible, is what matters

What a useless platitude...

Any government anywhere reduces someone's freedom in some way. Yet not no society has decided to forgo this mechanisms in the pursuit of pure "freedom".

If you actually believe in anarchistic utopias...fine. You're wrong, but many people are. But otherwise simply screaming freedom, freedom just isn't an argument.

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

#67

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 retenti…

that seems pretty simple, really: the company chooses one jurisdiction to operate in

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

#68

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…

Nothing requires Google to do business in Canada, and it's not like this is the first Canadian law to extend to things that happen internationally.

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

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's actually quite common for a country to dictate what it's citizens and companies can do outside of its borders. For example, * A US company can be prosecuted on corruption charges if it bribes an official out of its borders. This is even if what they do is not considered bribery in the country itself; you are bound to the US law even when you are doing business outside of it. The US has used this approach…

* That is a US company * The ban affects US companies * The taxes affect US citizens * The laws affect US citizens This has nothing to do with this decision. What Canada is aiming to do is to force a non-Canadian company to follow Canadian law even if it does not operate at all in Canada.

Google makes money advertising to Canadians. that sounds a lot like operating in canada

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

#70

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…

> One nation does NOT have the authority to dictate what a company can do outside of it's borders and concerns.

We crossed this bridge quite a while ago, it's only the direction that's changing. If I hacked a server in the US from the UK guess where I'm being charged? If I send drugs from Canada to the US guess where I'm being charged? These aren't hypotheticals, they've happened before.

I agree it needs to be changed, but this was foreseeable a long time ago and nobody cared.

Post reply on HN