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Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide

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Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide

#41

Post by tempestn »

tomp wrote: post #35
PinguTS wrote: post #9

Not that new. Most of the DMCA take down notices are also executed worldwide.

DMCA take downs are only effective because Google is a US company. If I have a company in e.g. Slovenia, DMCA is ineffective, and they would have to go through Slovenian courts to take down the website (unless they just seize the domain).

Yes and no. Some countries (Canada being one) have treaties with the US that let court judgements in one country be enforced in the other. So even if you have no assets in the US or income from the US, a US court decision could still affect you if you live in such a country.

Of course, most internet companies do do some business in the US.

Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide

#42

Post by alphapapa »

avz wrote: post #27
toyg wrote: post #22

Justice systems the world over have been itching for a way to force this whole interweb thing to fall in line for more than a decade, but they couldn't find a solid-enough target in a quickly-changing landscape. Now that things have matured, they are going after the big established players: Google for search/advertising, Facebook for social activity, Twitter for censorship/regulated speech, Amazon for commerce, Youtu…

Variety of laws ensures diversification which protects against and limits the fallout from legal mistakes. It also allows humanity to experiment and learn faster than a single monolithic legal system would permit.

I think that is one of the principles the United States was supposed to be based upon. However...

Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide

#43

Post by toyg »

scrrr wrote: post #36
throwwit wrote: post #11

The Internet is going to become a country-by-country intranet at this rate.

The world wide web. Off topic, but I think we tend to forget that most legislation affects websites. Nothing keeps you from writing your own version of DNS, your own protocol (who says it has to be HTTP) etc. That's the beauty of TCP/IP! :)

They'll just start writing laws regulating TCP/IP instead. They already do in China, after all.

There is no technical answer to this sort of problems.

Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide

#44

Post by tempestn »

gorklin wrote: post #40
tempestn wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect at least in the medium term it will look more like a global (or at least multilateral) treaty, rather than a global government. But I agree that now is the time to think about how we could like such a thing to be structured. As much as some people would like it to be, the internet can't be the new wild west forever. It will be regulated. The hope is to have it regulated in a fair, consistent, and manageable…

Good luck regulating my encrypted anonymized connection.

The regulation would be on the other end. Tor won't help you when your favorite site shuts down because they can't comply with conflicting court orders from Canada and Australia (or wherever).

Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide

#45

Post by toyg »

gorklin wrote: post #40
tempestn wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect at least in the medium term it will look more like a global (or at least multilateral) treaty, rather than a global government. But I agree that now is the time to think about how we could like such a thing to be structured. As much as some people would like it to be, the internet can't be the new wild west forever. It will be regulated. The hope is to have it regulated in a fair, consistent, and manageable…

Good luck regulating my encrypted anonymized connection.

If they can't regulate it, they will ban it.

Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide

#46

Post by vacri »

tezza wrote: post #34
kryptiskt wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like something from here would apply: "Contempt of Court includes the following behaviours: - Fails to maintain a respectful attitude, remain silent or refrain from showing approval or disapproval of the proceeding - Refuses or neglects to obey a subpoena - Willfully disobeys a process or order of the Court - Interfere with the orderly administration of justice or to impair the authority or dignity of the Cour…

I agree, out and out Contempt of Court. Further, the Judge themselves is in charge of deciding whether Contempt of Court has occurred. No possible jury to convince or appeal to, just the judge. They can have you imprisoned in under a day. Contempt of Court is very serious.

They can have you imprisoned in under a day.

Only if you're in their jurisdiction. And Google isn't a person to jail. And corporations have a way of making these things not attributable to any one person.

However, it would be better to state the argument given by the law professor in the article: "what happens if a Russian court orders Google to remove gay and lesbian sites from its database". Find something that the judge cares about personally, and you'll find a country that opposes it. Google can also complain that it's being targetted - why not Bing? Yahoo? Any other search providers? Does Wikipedia have a page for the company? What about reseller companies, that resell the competitor - not only are they facilitators, they're witting facilitators? What about sites with user reviews? At what point do we draw the moral line about shooting the messenger?

Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide

#47

Post by toyg »

kamjam wrote: post #21

So I am going to assume that the plaintiff will also be filing against Bing, Yahoo and all the other search engines individually too? Cos you know, Google is not the only search engine out there...

It's more likely that, if this trend continues, Google itself will eventually drag competitors through the courts to force them to comply with rules they are forced to obey. Or they might lobby the US Congress or EU Parliament to pass laws that "clarify the position of all search engines".

Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide

#48

Post by vacri »

jacquesm wrote: post #33
jrockway wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will the US extradite someone to Canada for contempt of court?

They could simply seize the assets of Google Montreal.

I imagine Google going dark in Canada would hurt Canada more than it's worth (playing out the fantasy scenario). I don't just mean search, but at this point there'll be plenty of companies that rely on Google Apps, including gmail.

Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide

#49

Post by Shivetya »

Natsu wrote: post #13
bambax wrote: post #2

This is insane. The plaintiff, Equustek Solutions Inc., says the main defendant, Morgan Jack, sells networking devices that infringe on their trademark. The defendant sells these things online; the plaintiff wants his websites to be dereferenced from Google. The court agreed and asked Google to remove the links on all its properties worldwide (not just google.ca). But what does Google have to do with this? Why does t…

Some part of me wonders what would happen if they were to turn off Google to Canada for a day and list the judge's phone number as the person to complain to. (Probably one very angry judge, but I wonder...)

They should delist the other guy as well so it does appear they are taking sides. Delisting the Canadian government might be worthwhile too
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