Canada: Top court orders Google to block website search results

[lisek991]

Source: https://phys.org/news/2017-06-canada-court-google-block-website.html

 

This in intresting, espetially, when You consider all the FreeWeb and gerenal people freedom needs.

I mean, I understand blocking sites such as child pornography, drug dealing etc, that's obvious why.

But this? I'm not really sure, whether this should be blocked from the search engine, or just the site should be taken down.

 

Quote

Following that lower court ruling, Google de-indexed 345 webpages associated with the offending firm in Canada.

 

Also, I know taking down sites from other countries is hard, but up to now, this was the only way.

What do You guys think? 

[Hiitchy]

I think it's silly. People do questionable things, if we can't use the internet to get away from life, then what's left?

[LAwLz]

For those interested, here is what I think has happened:

1) Equustek Solutions is a Canadian manufacturer of, among other things, telecommunications equipment.

2) Some company that we'll called CompanyX bought Equustek equipment and rebranded it as their own, without permission.

3) Equustek sued CompanyX for copyright infringement and won.

4) Google de-indexed 345 pages associated with CompanyX on Canadian Google.

5) Equustek said that was not enough and demanded that all mentions of CompanyX should be de-indexed, on all Google websites (not just the Canadian one). The court agreed.

 

 

I think this is a very bad move. It's a tough subject with lots of implications.

Of course the court has a good argument when they say that blocking some results in Canada only won't stop harm from happening in other countries, but I think the ramifications becomes way too severe if you let governments decide what should and shouldn't be allowed on Google. If you're OK with Canada doing it, then you also need to accept that Russia and China should be allowed to do it.

 

"You're not allowed to sell unauthorized rebrands of products here in Canada, so therefore it should be blocked globally!" is just as valid of an argument as "you're not allowed to educate people about homosexuality here in Russia, so therefore it should be blocked globally!" once you remove the morality part, which is subjective and differs from person to person.

[mr moose]

I think we should protect a free internet, but I also think we should punish with a very stern consequence anyone who hides their criminal or damaging behaviour behind such freedoms.   I am reminded of the old adage: it only takes one bad apple to spoil the whole damn bunch, if we are not careful all we will have left is a rotten internet full of malice and fraud.

 

 

[lisek991]

There is one thing that is interesting here.

The firm is far as I understand, won the case in Canada.

But I bet, there are countries where it would loose.

Did Google block the results only from Canada? Google.ca? Or worldwide?

I'm not an expert in international law tbh, but it keeps bugging me.

[samcroft]

I think the headline of the article is misleading. "Blocking" something regionally, is what companies like Google or Twitter do all the time to comply with courts in that region. What is so significant about this is that The Supreme Court of Canada has decided it has the jurisdiction to outright remove search entries globally. So, a Canadian court decides it can stop me (in EU) from seeing the website of a garbage company (that is not in Canada any more) on the search engine of an U.S. company. That is just ridiculous.

[lisek991]

Well.. Here is a much more strict headline:

http://searchengineland.com/canada-supreme-court-orders-google-de-index-site-globally-opening-door-censorship-278144

[paddy-stone]

This is ridiculous, a regional court should have no say in what happens outside their region. It's up to the plaintif to seek court decisions in other regions about their IP.

[lisek991]

On the other hand, to be honest, if a site is taken down, it's taken down globally, not only in one country.

But yeah, I agree search engines are a diffretn thing completly, and this shouldn't happend.


I Wonder if for ex, the supreme court of USA rules that the site musn;t be taken down... in a case of a company that would be based in the US and Canada... what happens if 2 courts have diffrent rullings? 

[SCHISCHKA]

meh i use duckduckgo.com

google has become evil and there is an internet without google.

[mr moose]

28 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

meh i use duckduckgo.com

google has become evil and there is an internet without google.

not much of an internet though, it seems avoiding google on the internet is like trying to avoid cisco hardware on the internet.

[Taf the Ghost]

This could rapidly escalate to an International Trade issue.  Everyone else is going to take a very dim view that courts in Canada can enforce rules "globally". The company has my sympathy because it's an unfun situation to deal with, but they also are probably going to hurt themselves more in the process. The darker parts of the Internet are going to take an amazingly nasty view of this situation. 

 

Also, NAFTA renegotiations are starting soon.  This will suddenly be an issue there.

[GoodBytes]

This is stupid.. the company reselling the product will just rename itself, again and again and again..

[Sakkura]

Yeah, this potentially raises the issue of venue shopping, the same way we've seen in the US with patent trolls. They all sue in East Texas because the courts there just happen to be very friendly to plaintiffs.

 

Now with these claims for de-indexing for copyright or other violations, we might see the same thing internationally. If plaintiffs are more likely to win in country X, then they'll all end up suing in country X with global impact.

[Drak3]

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

if we are not careful all we will have left is a rotten internet full of malice and fraud

So slightly better than what we have currently.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

/s

[mr moose]

5 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

So slightly better than what we have currently.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

/s

Sarcastic or not, that remark still works.   

[Misanthrope]

This is a really interesting case: I don't automatically agree with either side.

 

On one hand, I don't think that we can ignore that the company are proven and known counterfeiters. When it comes to piracy results on virtual counterfeiting however, Google has complied with other rulings like DMCA takedown notices. They do so on a case by case basis however not just de-listing mentions of the pirate bay in and of themselves which ties to the second point.

 

Google is alleging overreaching and I tend to agree: they're not asking de-list mentions of known counterfeits meaning specific products by this company but the entire company as a whole. And worldwide. This is basically demanding an international preemptive punishment: Not only has the company not been found guilty of counterfeiting on other countries but this is basically saying "This company is forever barred from ever doing business, doesn't matters if they produce legit products they should all be buried" More over I do feel that giving into the Canadian demands here will lead to a slippery slope since you know what will happen: The company will change names and resume business and they'll want that other name removed too. That's basically accusing the companies directors and employees of future crimes.

 

What happens if the C.E.O. or a member of their board of directors decides to start another company? Do we remove their results too because of the case on the previous company? How long is it reasonable to follow around and punish people on the basis of a single, past bad action? I'm sorry that counterfeiting seems to be a difficult crime to go after in Canada apparently but it's no justification for the overreach.

[MadyTehWolfie]

4 hours ago, samcroft said:

I think the headline of the article is misleading. "Blocking" something regionally, is what companies like Google or Twitter do all the time to comply with courts in that region. What is so significant about this is that The Supreme Court of Canada has decided it has the jurisdiction to outright remove search entries globally. So, a Canadian court decides it can stop me (in EU) from seeing the website of a garbage company (that is not in Canada any more) on the search engine of an U.S. company. That is just ridiculous.

That's Canada for you.

[ChineseChef]

6 hours ago, LAwLz said:

-snip- If you're OK with Canada doing it, then you also need to accept that Russia and China should be allowed to do it.

 

"You're not allowed to sell unauthorized rebrands of products here in Canada, so therefore it should be blocked globally!" is just as valid of an argument as "you're not allowed to educate people about homosexuality here in Russia, so therefore it should be blocked globally!" once you remove the morality part, which is subjective and differs from person to person.

I think this is the biggest thing that people aren't seeing with a lot of these cases.  The more we allow companies and governments in the west to suppress and censor the internet, the more other countries we "disagree" with will do it.  And the more they will be able to justify it.  And even if they don't feel they can justify a moral argument, they just have to find a way of claiming they are protecting business interests, or copyrights.  They will simply frame their oppression in whatever ways we do, and then we can't really say anything about it.

 

And even worse, if the US successfully orders Google/MS/any big data company to give them data from other countries, you know China and Russia and any other big markets are simply going to demand the same.  And they are going to demand more, and they are going to want it immediately.  China especially has shown it is more than willing to just straight block companies that don't comply with their demands, they will also just seize hardware then reverse engineer or outright steal software/IP.  And I doubt Russia would have any issue with doing the same.  We can make all kinds of claims, but the US isn't yet willing to openly take a companies assets, steal all their IP, and ban them from the country simply because they wouldn't hand over foreign data.  Other countries are more than willing.  And companies like Facebook and MS and Google have shown they are more than willing to bend over for these oppressive governments.

[WMGroomAK]

While I can understand where the Canadian company is coming from, I think this has bad implications is all the more reason that the Internet should not operate strictly based on local judicial opinions.  If something like this is allowed, all it does is help to set up precedent for future abuses of the law.  Court orders that affect companies and internet use across national boundaries should be required to be up held by a court in the country that it crosses into.

[Prysin]

22 hours ago, LAwLz said:

For those interested, here is what I think has happened:

1) Equustek Solutions is a Canadian manufacturer of, among other things, telecommunications equipment.

2) Some company that we'll called CompanyX bought Equustek equipment and rebranded it as their own, without permission.

3) Equustek sued CompanyX for copyright infringement and won.

4) Google de-indexed 345 pages associated with CompanyX on Canadian Google.

5) Equustek said that was not enough and demanded that all mentions of CompanyX should be de-indexed, on all Google websites (not just the Canadian one). The court agreed.

 

 

I think this is a very bad move. It's a tough subject with lots of implications.

Of course the court has a good argument when they say that blocking some results in Canada only won't stop harm from happening in other countries, but I think the ramifications becomes way too severe if you let governments decide what should and shouldn't be allowed on Google. If you're OK with Canada doing it, then you also need to accept that Russia and China should be allowed to do it.

 

"You're not allowed to sell unauthorized rebrands of products here in Canada, so therefore it should be blocked globally!" is just as valid of an argument as "you're not allowed to educate people about homosexuality here in Russia, so therefore it should be blocked globally!" once you remove the morality part, which is subjective and differs from person to person.

russia or china isnt the most worrysome. EUROPE is.

Imagine the precedence this sets for certain EU countries to go on a ballistic blockade spree regarding forums and websites that has the wrong political opinion. Or software patent trolls in the US shutting down "competitors" over incredibly vague patents written some 30 years back.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

There are many tricky issues here, and I think OP made a good job at pointing out a number of them.

I'll just add one: we are so used to using search engines as a gateway to the internet, that we may end up confusing the search engines with the internet itself. Taking down a website is like closing down a shop. However, removing the relevant search results would be like... erasing any mention from the newspapers? Or more like eliminating any referenced to the shut down shop from GPS navigators and Google Maps? To what extent we consider search engines as private business that may or may not exist, and may or may not be accurate, and to what extent we consider them critical internet public services? To what extent indexing something is just reporting on reality, vs. becoming partners-in-crime with the indexed object?

 

I'm not 100% where my stance would be, but I also suspect that justice systems aren't 100% consistent on these matters, both across jurisdictions and over time.

[JAKEBAB]

nvm.

[GOTSpectrum]

On 6/30/2017 at 10:23 AM, Prysin said:

russia or china isnt the most worrysome. EUROPE is.

Imagine the precedence this sets for certain EU countries to go on a ballistic blockade spree regarding forums and websites that has the wrong political opinion. Or software patent trolls in the US shutting down "competitors" over incredibly vague patents written some 30 years back.

As an EU citizen myself(but not for much longer) I have to tend to agree with you on this! I may have voted remain but one can't argue the fact that the EU is becoming increasingly more dictatorship like and oppressive. What a worrying time we live in. My partner studies military history and the story over Hitler taking more and more rights away seemed normal at the time as it was a step by step approach and happened over a period where he affected the minorities first. What I'm getting at is, now its people who break IP laws, next could be any laws and who knows after that... Get your tin foil to the ready folks... we're going to need it at this rate.

[mr moose]

On 6/30/2017 at 9:35 PM, SpaceGhostC2C said:

 

I'm not 100% where my stance would be, but I also suspect that justice systems aren't 100% consistent on these matters, both across jurisdictions and over time.

 

The thing that strikes me in this thread is that the people I expected to be all in one corner about it aren't.   And that is good, because just like your comment, most of the intelligent comments have admitted that to a degree they are not 100% sure on how good or bad this is.    There is definitely room/need in our world for regulation to keep the criminals at bay, but how do we ensure such regulation is not misused?