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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

#61

Post by Confusion »

vacri wrote: post #46
tezza wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

  And Google isn't a person to jail.
Which nicely illustrates one of the major problems of having granted corporations 'legal person' status: the punishments for various crimes were originally intended to punish natural persons and have never been sufficiently adapted to punish corporations. What's a proper punishment for flagrant contempt of the court by a corporation?

  And corporations have a way of making these things not 
  attributable to any one person.
That is in fact their raison d'être.

Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide

#62

Post by avz »

pjc50 wrote: post #39
avz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming courts you deal with don't overreach like the B.C. court just did, you can easily resolve this problem by complying with each law within each respective jurisdiction. This is made easier by the fact that your company is usually represented by separate local legal entities whose business is within each jurisdiction.

Which jurisdiction is a web page in? Where it's hosted, where it's controlled from, where its ads are served from, where it's read, where its payment processing is done?

A website may be complex enough and distributed enough to straddle multiple jurisdictions (this isn't an entirely new situation though since similar issues came up with radio spectrum regulations).

The bottom line is this: your jurisdiction extends as far as your control. A court may be able to issue injunctions against the systems which are located on its jurisdiction which may only be a subset of systems supporting a given site. In places where it is legal, it may also censor the internet. If everything from hosting, through advertising, payments and readership are outside the jurisdiction then it can do nothing directly and must resort to seeking assistance from foreign jurisdictions. I'd say in those situations it is entirely appropriate.

Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide

#64

Post by nknighthb »

PinguTS wrote: post #9

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

DMCA takedowns are not court orders. You're not actually compelled to comply with them at all, but you lose access to the safe harbor provision if you don't.

Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide

#66

Post by briandh »

tempestn wrote: post #14
DanBC wrote: post #7

What happens to Google if they comply in all of Canada but do not comply for the rest of the world? It would be cheaper for Google to offer specialist SEO and web design help for these aggrieved parties - "here's how you get your story out and ranked higher than the attack sites" - than to fight legal cases through the courts. Although I am pleased thay're taking the cases to court to defend their position.

Google was the defendant in this case, so they had little choice but to go to court. Let alone the consequences to their Canadian business, US and Canadian courts cooperate in enforcing judgements, so they couldn't ignore it regardless. (Of course they are choosing to appeal, which is optional but obviously a good idea given the pain this precedent could cause.)

> Google was the defendant in this case

No they weren't. In fact, the decision linked at the top of the thread specifically refers to Google and Google Canada as "non-parties".

Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide

#67

Post by shakethemonkey »

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…

This wouldn't fly in the USA:

"It is clear from the record that Google was never named as a party to the suit, was never served with process, never waived or accepted process, and never made an appearance in the suit before the expunction order was entered. Nothing in the record establishes that Google stands in privity to the commission or to Jackson. Accordingly, we hold that Google was not a party to the suit and that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to enter orders against Google." [1]

[1] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140609/07402727525/texas...

Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide

#69

Post by peterarmstrong »

phloxicon wrote: post #54
peterarmstrong wrote: post #29

If 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?

Mandatory unsubscribe is totally fine, obviously.

But CASL includes making confirmation, welcome and update emails opt-in, or else risking an up to $10 million dollar fine.

Yes, really.

Even if you're not a Canadian business, this will apply to you if you email Canadians.

Yes, really.

Say goodbye to your opt-out email drip courses.

Re: Canadian court ruling orders Google to block sites worldwide

#70

Post by vidarh »

toyg wrote: post #38
mnem wrote: post #25

Earlier 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.

> but you also know that your laws are supposed to stop at your borders

There's a number of jurisdictions where that is not strictly true. Including the US (US citizens are subject to US tax law regardless where they live), and a number of European countries.

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