This shit needs to end. Even the obvious jurisdiction overreach aside, what happened is the court ordering Google - a party not in any way involved in the conflict at hand - to withhold information from the public. The idea that this "western" form of censorship is in any way better than, say, the blocks on porn in Pakistan or political censorship in Russia is either extremely short-sighted or simply serves somebody's interests (as in case of the plaintiff lawyer here). How it is OK for anyone to have such authority is beyond me.
Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide
51–60 of 109 posts
Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide
#52let me guess is it Google's fault this time or ?:D
Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yes, but the law will generally not bend so readily to blackmail as people think it will.
Companies like Apple, Google, Facebook and other global IT companies are at an advantage here because they can always pack up and move but if they start pissing off the legal system in the larger economies it may very well backfire.
For 'brick and mortar' companies such tricks are a lot harder to pull off. Also, to protect against mutual damage governments can enter into collectives which have a lot more power against multi-nationals than any single country.
If a judge orders you 'x', you can appeal but in the meantime it is usually wise do 'x', unless you've very carefully weighed the risks and any fall-out and you decide to make a stand.
It's quite possible this is a case worth doing that for.
Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide
#54If you think this is bad, just wait until July 1 and CASL gets introduced. As a Canadian I'd like to apologize for this: http://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2014/25293/how-canadas-a... http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/casl-lcap.htm
Having consent, a person who can be replied to instead of ano-reply and a mandatory unsubscribe doesn't sound so bad to me. What are the main arguments against it?
Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide
#55This 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...)
I think one inevitable fairly result would be many other national governments observing Google trying to use its market position in order to bully the courts and overpower the rule of law in a country, and swiftly passing legislation ordering Google's break up as a company so that it can never do it again.
Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yes, but the law will generally not bend so readily to blackmail as people think it will. Companies like Apple, Google, Facebook and other global IT companies are at an advantage here because they can always pack up and move but if they start pissing off the legal system in the larger economies it may very well backfire. For 'brick and mortar' companies such tricks are a lot harder to pull off. Also, to protect again…
Oh, for sure. I'm just playing out a fantasy scenario. I imagine in the google offices that making Canada dark in response would have been passed as a joke, but no-one would seriously think it. And even if they did think of it seriously, the legal team would stomp them before they could do anything.
Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide
#57Does anyone know what this censored site is? Time for some Streisand Effect.
Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide
#58So 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 had occurred to me that the (apparent) failure of the plaintiff, the engineering company, to file complaints against the other companies providing search engines might be a factor in an appeal against the injunction by Google.
As others have commented, I suspect something like the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea that replaced a previous court dating from the League of Nations times, may arise.
Meanwhile, the legal profession in Canada will experience a welcome increase in civil law work and fees!
Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would a justice system care? Or do you mean government?
Imagine you were a judge tasked with ruling on a case like this. You know the rules force you to tell Google to stop acting like it does, but you also know that your laws are supposed to stop at your borders, and in any case forcing such a global operation to comply with your ruling is almost like fighting windmills. Wouldn't that bother you? Of course it would.
If I recall, the issue of jurisdiction isn't "does any of the activity happen outside our borders" (law stopping at the border) but "does any of the activity happen inside our borders" (activity in a jurisdiction giving those courts standing).
Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide
#60Why only google? is that the only search engine that displays those links?