Canadian Court Orders Google To Remove Websites From Its Global Index

An anonymous reader writes In the aftermath of the European Court of Justice "right to be forgotten" decision, many asked whether a similar ruling could arise elsewhere. While a privacy-related ruling has yet to hit Canada, Michael Geist reports that last week a Canadian court relied in part on the decision in issuing an unprecedented order requiring Google to remove websites from its global index. The ruling is unusual since its reach extends far beyond Canada. Rather than ordering the company to remove certain links from the search results available through Google.ca, the order intentionally targets the entire database, requiring the company to ensure that no one, anywhere in the world, can see the search results.

Comments

Call CDC

[Thanshin]

Call the CDC! Extra national lawmaking is contagious!

Re:Call CDC

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The CDC already is aware -- we're patient zero.

Re:Call CDC

[amalcolm]

Whilst 'murica' would never try to force ITS ideology on another country/continent. FUCKWIT

Re:Call CDC

[Jane Q. Public]

Call the CDC! Extra national lawmaking is contagious!

The U.S. was actually one of the first places to try this, remember? Clueless judges made the same kind of ruling.

It didn't work. But they tried.

Re:Call CDC

[meerling]

So what your saying is that Canada doing this is somehow the fault of the USA?

How about, numerous countries try to do this, with one of the most publicised being the USA, though it is deplorable in all cases, even when Canada tries it.

Re:Call CDC

[Curtman]

So what your saying is that Canada doing this is somehow the fault of the USA?

[Y]our country, and particularly your conservative movement, is a light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world. -- Stephen Harper

Yes.
Our conservatives just aren't smart enough to come up with these schemes on their own. They emulate even the failed policies, without every questioning why.

Re:Call CDC

[Mashiki]

Funny, bet you weren't bitching and moaning about them when they slapped the CRTC across the ass for trying to set the UBB rate so high that it would have bankrupted TPIA's.

Re:Call CDC

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont worry, Hillary will be on board with it all. Stupid bitch...

Doesn't this already happen?

[mysterons]

For example, in Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... and Thailand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[stephenmac7]

No, the important part is that it's the global index.

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[CastrTroy]

Otherwise, what's the point of removing it. It's trivial for users to search the Google index of other counties. I can search Google France by simply going to Google.fr. If "the right to be forgotten" does not extend outside your own country's borders, are you really forgotten?

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[jlv]

There should be no "right to be forgotten" any more than a right to leach off the livelihood of others.

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[xaxa]

That's the point the judge made.

He noted that an order from a French court to remove Nazi symbols from Yahoo.com failed, as the California court overturned it. But, he granted this order because he considers removing links to these websites (infringing "intellectual property", it doesn't say what kind) would be valid in most countries.

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[gurps_npc]

Yes. Because the right to be forgotten is not designed to destroy the evidence. Instead it is designed to make it just a little bit harder to destroy someone's life. If for example your ex-wife or girlfriend falsely accuses you of being a pedophile, then flees the country and keeps posting new blogs about how you had sex with her non-existent daughter, you still deserve the right to get a job. If google blocks you from just you countrie's version of google, then you can get a job. Some companies may check multiple versions of google, and reject you based on the slander, but not all will do it. The right to be forgotten is not designed to prevent anyone from finding out stuff, just to make it a little bit harder.

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[Immerman]

The problem of course is that it's not restricted to slander, and politicians were the very first to invoke the law - with the goal of removing inconvenient facts about themselves from the public eye.

Re: Doesn't this already happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see: no job, non-existant daughter, imaginary girlfriend, pedophile... Typical nerd.

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahahaha.. you're Canadian, right?

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[bitt3n]

Instead it is designed to make it just a little bit harder to destroy someone's life.

Practically speaking, the barrier is so low that anyone doing due diligence on a prospective hire would be an idiot not to use uncensored google. In fact, I imagine someone will quickly come up with a search mashup that shows only censored results, so finding out what the hire doesn't want you to know about him will be even easier than it is now.

I wonder what would happen if the US passed a law that made it illegal for a company to accede to the demand of a foreign government to deprive US citizens of access to data stored in a server on US soil unless providing this access clearly violates US law. Would the Canadian judge claim that Canadian law should take precedence over US law in the US?

Re: Doesn't this already happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

That would make sense if we all lived in bubbles and didn't interact with each other. We ALL live off the work of others, we only vary by method and degree.

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[Darinbob]

The EU law also applies if the accusations were true. Evidence is not removed but you can't as easily search for it with a web browser. It's more about being a "make me hard to look up online" law, or a "let me control my online persona" law. With real slander you could get the original evidence removed, if you're within the same legal jurisdiction.

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[Darinbob]

No, the Canadian law is not at all binding in the US, or any other country for that matter. However, if Google fails to comply then it could be punished within Canada with fines. If it fails to pay the fines then seizure of Canadian located assets, and though unlikely this could go as far as seizure of "google.ca" domain.

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[easyTree]

I wonder what would happen if the US passed a law that made it illegal for a company to accede to the demand of a foreign government to deprive US citizens of access to data stored in a server on US soil...

Here's a thought - why not start with a law that applies to your own government?

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[bitt3n]

Clearly they intend the law to be binding in the US, because they are attempting to govern conduct that takes place entirely in the US: the delivery of information on US servers to US IP addresses. What they really want to do is stop Canadians from accessing US IP addresses, but obviously that's not feasible.

Presumably Canada considers Google's hosting of Canadians' data to be a violation of Canadian law regardless of whether Google has a presence in Canada.

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[Jhon]

"Yes. Because the right to be forgotten is not designed to destroy the evidence. Instead it is designed to make it just a little bit harder to destroy someone's life."

Particularly kids. Enter my daughter's name in google and POOF, you can read all about the horrors she and our family went through when she was kidnapped. I've ran around to a number of news outlets and for the most part they have been cooperative when I ask them to remove her name/image, but it's hardly perfect.

However, there's some nasty arse bloggers with ego's far bigger than Neptune...

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[Adrian Lopez]

Because the right to be forgotten is not designed to destroy the evidence.

Right. It's only designed to destroy any links to that evidence, which, for some reason, you don't think is a bad thing.

Instead it is designed to make it just a little bit harder to destroy someone's life.

In fact, it's designed to make it a lot harder to find the content in question, and do so whether or not doing otherwise would destroy someone's life.

If for example your ex-wife or girlfriend falsely accuses you of being a pedophile...

That's libel, and it's illegal even without the "right to be forgotten". If, on the other hand, the claim is not false, why should you have the right to sweep it under the rug?

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[kwbauer]

Uh, that has nothing to do with the right to be forgotten (which is really not a right at all and would be impossible to enforce even if it were to be deemed as such as it would require a huge leap forward in technology and physiological/chemical understanding).

What gurps_npc is talking about is the right not to be slandered and/or libeled (lied about), whichever is technically correct here.

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

That has absolutely nothing to do with the right to be forgotten. It's about rapists and war criminals not wanting other people to find out about their past transgressions. In the situation you listed it would be trivial to pickup the woman who was slandering you on the internet. Notice the law already has an area concerned with slander.

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[tlambert]

The "intellectual property" being "infringed" is trade secrets, and the trade secrets are already disclosed.

In the U.S. you can raise a civil action against the disclosure of a trade secret (this was in fact one basis for the USL vs. UCB lawsuit, after BSDI hid behind UCB in the USL vs. BSDI lawsuit), but once disclosed, it is no longer secret. If you wanted your IP protected in this fashion, the way to do it is to get a patent, and live with the fact that it applies for "only" 20 years, rather than in perpetuity.

Canada may treat trade secrets differently than the U.S. treats them, but the upshot of this is that no U.S. court would uphold this order by the Canadian court, and if Canada *does* treat them the same as the U.S., it was a poor decision by the Canadian court in the first place.

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[tlambert]

Yes. Because the right to be forgotten is not designed to destroy the evidence.

Instead it is designed to make it just a little bit harder to destroy someone's life.

If for example your ex-wife or girlfriend falsely accuses you of being a pedophile, then flees the country and keeps posting new blogs about how you had sex with her non-existent daughter, you still deserve the right to get a job.

I'm pretty sure that if the wife is doing this, she's going to just do a rolling blog, and you can either block all names on all blog sites, effectively outlawing blogging entirely because of this one woman, or you can freaking lump it, and ensure your own blog posts explaining her mental illness show up in the search results before her posts show up about you. Obviously, for this to happen, your posts will have to pass the "relevance test", rather than just being you whining, and then paying an SEO to try to get higher placement in Google until the next time Google changes their algorithm to make gaming the relevance filter harder.

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Politicians are not covered under the right to be forgotten because they are public figures

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[mynamestolen]

I have to disagree. Any employer with half a brain would quickly dismiss the info. Yes I know some companies wouldn't, but the downside for net censorship, not to mention the waste of time trying to sanitize, is far too high.

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[Immerman]

The courts say otherwise. The issue, if I recall correctly, is where exactly the line of matters of public interest lie. I don't know that any final rulings have been issued, but the fact that the cases weren't thrown out immediately give politicians a powerful tool in sculpting their public image.

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that solving a wrong problem? After all, your ex could be hell-bent to get you good and actively spy on you, then write individual messages to your new employers, neighbors, significant others, ... This seems like closing and locking a door which stands on its own without a wall or fence.

What needs to be done is harder, but only proper way: everyone should learn to think critically and not trust everything they read on Internet.

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[flyneye]

I dunno what the problem is, most Canadians Ive met are entirely forgettable.
So far I can only recall Rush, The Trailer Park Boys and the R.C.M.P. without actually having met them.
When this round is through , we need to pass a law that requires ALL Canadians to wear name tags on their shirts for our convenience.
France is alright as is; I never even give them a thought or plan to.
Back in my days of journalism, I recall having to handle the letters section of the magazine and at one point, throwing up my hands and just writing: What are Canada and why do we keep getting letter from it??

Re:Doesn't this already happen?

[gurps_npc]

But is is trivial to slander someone from another jurisdiction.

More importantly, even if it is true, that does not meant he world has the right to hear about it.

For example, my sex life is none of your business, even if it is accurately reported.

And it's not just gay people that deserve the right to privacy.

Internet

[NotInHere]

At least the canadian judges do at least understand how the internet works, when they requested a global ban. However, rulings like these will create a (black?) market for disclosing information. The court is only giving more value to the information, not stopping it spreading.

Re:Internet

[Unknown1337]

That is definitely one possible outcome. It is beyond ridiculous that this is Google's problem at all. Sue the company who is making the illegal product and force them to take down all sites and advertisements. Once the proper approach has been established, then requesting, not demanding that Google remove the historic links to fraudulent material would be in order. When your cat is stuck up a tree; shooting it gets it down... but that doesn't mean it is the proper course of action.

Re:Internet

[Racemaniac]

I was thinking the same. The probably most "correct" response would be to make it technically impossible to get the data from Canada, but there is no other way to do that than to just block the data worldwide. Otherwise a simple proxy in another country would circumvent it (or even just imperfect detection of whether the user is in Canada or not).

It seems broad, but unless we've got extremely tightly DRM/Firewall of china kind of restrictions on all data, removing it completely is probably the only way for google to make sure it can no longer be accessed from Canada...

It's still not nice to see such rulings, but unless anyone here has a better idea that isn't trivially circumvented, it's probably also totally legit.

Re:Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

When your cat is stuck up a tree; shooting it gets it down... but that doesn't mean it is the proper course of action.

Assuming that Google is the tree and the fraudulent web site is the cat, one should not be cutting down the tree to get the cat out. Shooting the cat, in this case, would be a legitimate response.

Or as a car analogy: You don't tear out the road when one person is driving recklessly.

Re:Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

More like cutting off a branch. Though if you cut off all of the branches then it isn't a very good tree.

Re:Internet

[Stolpskott]

Or as a car analogy: You don't tear out the road when one person is driving recklessly.

The car analogy would be accurate if the order was for the internet to be removed. In the Google case, it is more like "Someone is using a road to drive recklessly in Arse-end-of-nowhere, Ontario, CA. People who go to this God-forsaken place usually have a paper map made by Company X, so we are ordering Company X to remove Arse-end-of-nowhere from their maps."

Note, I am NOT suggesting that Ontario is the Arse-end-of-nowhere, but I do find it very troubling that a judge half way around the world from me thinks that my access to information on this matter should be curtailed. If the content is so objectionable, then the web host should be ordered to take the site down. As the plaintiffs in this case have named two Google entities as the non-party entities targeted for action, and the defendants as the individuals responsible for the actions that led to the case being brought, I see no action being taken to order the hosting provider to do anything.
If the rationale behind that lack of action on the hosting provider is that the hosting provider is outside Canadian jurisdiction, then the same rule must also apply to Google Inc., who are being ordered to comply with this ruling.

As a European, regarding the "right to be forgotten", I think it is a potentially good idea in some circumstances which is let down by dumb-assed execution opening the door for abuse by people and other entities looking to remove information of valid public interest.

Re:Internet

[NotInHere]

Wrong, the right analogy would be that you don't just build a embankment right before your own house, but spanning the whole affected part of the shore, including your neighbours.

Software is like a gas, such is the Internet.

Re:Internet

[Tom]

RTFA. I doubt your assumption holds true in this case:

The case involves a company that claims that another company used its trade secrets to create a competing product along with "bait and switch" tactics to trick users into purchasing their product. The defendant company had been the target of several court orders demanding that it stop selling the copied product on their website. Google voluntarily removed search results for the site from Google.ca search results, but was unwilling to block the sites from its worldwide search results.

Re:Internet

[AthanasiusKircher]

However, rulings like these will create a (black?) market for disclosing information.

Maybe. It depends on the information. There's lots of information on the internet that no one cares about. There's lots of minor stuff about individual people that might be mildly damaging to someone's personal reputation, but except in a few incredibly rare transactions (like that specific person trying to get a new job or something), no one will care.

A lot of the uproar about the "right to be forgotten" involves actual public records and information which were previously "public" but hard to access (in the sense that you could access them only by traveling to a paper archive somewhere or perhaps sending a written request for a document). Now they can be instantly searched and show up on Google -- but the world functioned reasonably well when many of those records were not so accessible.

So, will people really go out of their way and make a "black market" for this information? Only if it's actually valuable enough that they'd bother to find out if the internet didn't exist.

I think of Google like a giant card catalog in an old library. (Anyone remember those? For you youngsters, there was a cabinet with a bunch of physical index cards that had lists for all the books and items in the library.)

Deleting links from Google is like removing the card from the card catalog. The book still remains on the shelf for anyone to go look at it. And if it's a particularly well-known book, people will find it anyway through other means (go ask the librarian, learn the subject organization for cataloging which will allow you to locate it, etc.).

But if it's a book that's been sitting on the shelf for 100 years and is covered with dust, checked out only once in 1967 by a curious academic with a specific interest, removing the card from the catalog just means the book fades into even more obscurity.

The court is only giving more value to the information, not stopping it spreading.

It's not "giving more value" to it -- it's just making it harder to find. It only has value if people know it exists and are willing to pay someone else to find it. If people don't even know the thing exists, why would anyone pay?

But you do have a point about "not stopping it spreading." There's a reason that people who want to ban library books don't just rip the card out of the card catalog -- they want to actually remove the book from the library shelves. The problem is the process itself of banning something will call attention to the item under question, leading every teenager in the county to track down that "evil banned book" even if the reference is removed from the card catalog. Unless we remove the information from actual websites hosting stuff, rather than just the most popular search engine, it's still out there -- and court filings will just draw attention to it.

So, I would expect that to be the next stage in all these "right to be forgotten" cases -- the argument will be that requiring a court filing to get stuff removed will itself draw attention to the information, so we'll need secret court orders telling Google to take things down, or else we risk emphasizing the very information that people are asking Google to delete. And secret court orders of course are a recipe for abuse....

Re:Internet

[TangoMargarine]

If it's not possible to block/remove the data for just your country, so instead you have to block/remove it for the whole world, I think this demonstrates that the "right to be forgotten" is an unworkable idea. Why should your "right to erase the past" infringe on my right to be informed? Screw that.

Isn't this whole thing because people put undue weight on Internet slander anyway? We're trying to use a technological band-aid to fix a social problem.

Re:Internet

[TangoMargarine]

wasDefendantFoundGuilty ? whyShouldTheyHaveARightToBeForgotten : nobodyShouldCareAnyway;

(If they were found guilty, it should be in the public record that they fucked up. If they were found innocent, it should be in the public record that the accusations were unfounded.)

I must be missing something.

Re:Internet

[Tom]

I must be missing something.

Yes, like Reading The Fucking Article.

This is not a court case about some opinion being posted online or some unfavorable blog posting. The defendant in this case is manufacturing counterfeit products and selling them online, and has already been ordered by courts to stop doing so.

This is not about the european "right to be forgotten" at all, that was merely a click-bait blurb added into the summary.

Re:Internet

[Beardo the Bearded]

I agree. A more sensible solution would be to mandate that the infringing website be changed to say "the GW1000 product relies on technology stolen from Equustek . To buy the original product, visit Equustek " Make them put up a link to the original product.

Order that the defendants pay for the hosting for 100 years or whatever.

Finally, bar the defendants from working together and/or working on similar technology.

I'm not sure what the judge's problem is though. What you carry out in your brain is yours to keep in Canada.

Re:Internet

[TangoMargarine]

This is not a court case about some opinion being posted online or some unfavorable blog posting.

I didn't say it was...

This is not about the european "right to be forgotten" at all, that was merely a click-bait blurb added into the summary.

Well, they seem to be saying that they should be able to have the information removed from the Internet, so perhaps you could explain to me how it's really any different, other than being in Canada instead of Europe. (I skimmed the article and they point out that Europe's right to forget doesn't extend out of Europe, fine. But I still stand by my earlier post.)

I would prefer that if you're going to swear at me, you at least make a point in the process.

Re:Internet

[Tom]

Well, they seem to be saying that they should be able to have the information removed from the Internet, so perhaps you could explain to me how it's really any different

Because "right to forget" is a specific legal construction that, aside from the small differences of location, jurisdiction and domain, applies to a specific subset of information in specific circumstances following a specific procedure.

This case was about denying easy access to an e-commerce entity that has already been found to be in violation of the law. Where "right to forget" is the equivalent of the law telling people to stop putting up posters saying "John is a child rapist!" ten years after he was acquitted in court, this ruling is the equivalent of telling the phone company to list "Mary's Fine Cocain Emporium" under M in its phone directory.

I skimmed the article and they point out that Europe's right to forget doesn't extend out of Europe, fine

Uh, not just "fine". That's kinda the elephant in the room. If the judge had references that right and somehow applied it to Canada, then you would have a point. But he doesn't. I stand by my words that mentioning it in the summary was just click-bait, because the submitter knew that it is controversial.

Re:Internet

[TangoMargarine]

Because "right to forget" is a specific legal construction that, aside from the small differences of location, jurisdiction and domain, applies to a specific subset of information in specific circumstances following a specific procedure.

Except for the part where this specific case in this specific article is specifically talking about blocking it globally, which I have expressed is the specific reason why I'm against it. If it was just Canada, fine. Stay in your own jurisdiction. If that means your enforcement is ineffective, that's not my problem (but I'm repeating old arguments at this point and they haven't convinced you so far, so hey).

This case was about denying easy access to an e-commerce entity that has already been found to be in violation of the law.

Hmm...it looks like why the don't just shut them down since they've already been found guilty is for jurisdictional reasons? If they have domains hosted in other countries, they would have to go through channels to get those taken down...which comes back around to my same arguments anyway.

Uh, not just "fine". That's kinda the elephant in the room. If the judge had references that right and somehow applied it to Canada, then you would have a point. But he doesn't.

I guess I'm getting rather confused what we're actually arguing about, then. Pragmatically speaking, blocking this site globally has the same effect whether you call it Right to Forget or That Law Bob Passed Last Friday. While it may not be as directly comparable to free speech issues as e.g. a blog, (U.S.) courts have demonstrated that they are fond of bending precedents to fit their agendas. I suspect I've gotten myself into another "technically right/idealistic vs. pragmatic" argument here.

I stand by my words that mentioning it in the summary was just click-bait, because the submitter knew that it is controversial.

Yeah, you probably have a point there. We have a tendency to see stuff like this in summaries that the editor/submitter probably threw in thinking "hey, isn't this thing like this other thing" and somebody responds "FUCK YOU no it's not the same at all!"

Re:Internet

[TangoMargarine]

If your main argument is that this ISN'T in fact Right to Forget, I'll concede that point. But my points still stand.

Re:Internet

[Unknown1337]

I can't argue with the good debate that has arisen from trying to come up with a great analogy, but I actually hadn't intended it to be so literal, simply that the ends don't always justify the means. I feel these sorts of law suits make the scope of the results too small, which makes it easy to get caught up attempting the wrong solution, despite the appearance of a 'solution'. Especially since the 'ends' in this case is to remove records from Google which, while a good first step, is far from the desired effect of removing it from the internet.

Re:Internet

[NotInHere]

It's not "giving more value" to it -- it's just making it harder to find. It only has value if people know it exists and are willing to pay someone else to find it. If people don't even know the thing exists, why would anyone pay?

If people know that the result of their google search might not cover certain aspects of a person, as they know of the "right to be forgotten", then they perhaps pay someone who searches for the information instead of just relying on the google search.

Re:Internet

[Tom]

telling the phone company to list

to delist of course, sorry.

Re:Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's not possible to block/remove the data for just your country, so instead you have to block/remove it for the whole world, I think this demonstrates that the "right to be forgotten" is an unworkable idea.

So if it's unworkable, why do you care? You're therefore blathering about something that doesn't matter?

Why should your "right to erase the past" infringe on my right to be informed? Screw that.

Exactly my argument to you.

The judge is not trying restrict your information, as such. The judge is considering the needs of an individual, and attempting to find a way to protect him/her/it, for reasons that are private to that individual - and I hope shall forever remain private to that individual - from juggernaut corporations who have basically become a small monopoly in what was an open, equal-footing system...remember how the Internet - especially the web - was going to be "The Great Equaliser"? Well it's not. Don't BS me that it is. It was like that for about 8-9 years after Win95 before the monopolists took hold. These corporations claim, as do their fanbois you, that they should just be allowed to do whever it is they want without reference to others. I say to them, and to you: "Fuck that for a joke. Fuck off, and die."

Protecting people trumps our whimsical wants to pry on others. It also trumps whatever it is that Google and its sycophants et al. want. Those that really need the particular information will find it. Those that don't, well, they can fuck off. This includes you. If you're the type who wants to live in Google-world, where everybody can look up the consistency of everyone else' shit this morning then video it on their Glass and upload it to YouTube and blog about it on g+, and post it on your electronic resume, then go for it! Go live in Google World - I have *no problem with that*, but don't drag me into it. I never opted in. Fuck off out of my life, unless invited. I also wish to see that right, the right to tell *me* to "fuck off, it's none of your business", being available to you. If you don't wish to take advantage of that, your bad luck.

Isn't this whole thing because people put undue weight on Internet slander anyway? We're trying to use a technological band-aid to fix a social problem.

Who are you to decide what's important to someone else? Are you a trained judge? No? They're already beyond your question.

I applaud the move. It's a small step, but hopefully there'll be more small steps.

Re:Internet

[TangoMargarine]

So if it's unworkable, why do you care? You're therefore blathering about something that doesn't matter?

Because they're *not* implementing the unworkable option. They're trying to do it globally, and it will very much matter when they start blocking more relevant stuff "in the name of national security" as they will inevitably do. (Yes, this article is about Canada, but I can't imagine it'll be long before it ends up making its way to the U.S. under some cockamamie excuse and begins being promptly abused.)

I guess I'll just have to take solace in the size of my penis^H^H^H^H^Hmy +5 Insightful mod that tells me that a bunch of people agree with me.

Re:Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have a right to be informed ? What if its none of your god damned business despite the 'right' you claim which Im guessing means your American? It may well be the rest of the world will decide against you.

Re:Internet

[TangoMargarine]

If I don't have the right to remember, do you have the right to make me forget? There's a difference between not knowing something, and having public knowledge hidden after the fact for dumb reasons.

Jesus Christ are you ACs fixating on how I supposedly want to spy on your children.

Re:Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should your "right to erase the past" infringe on my right to be informed?

Why would the freedom of somebody to do as he wants and get drunk and drive be infringed by arresting him if caught doing it?, because it was declared illegal, regardless of what rights to free choice it infringes. The same happens with the "right to amend the past" and any other law that prevents you from doing something, like ripping a CD, reselling a plane ticket, selling drugs or never cleaning a restaurants' kitchen. Laws are regulations, and regulations regulate "rights".

Re:Internet

[Darinbob]

I haven't read the case, but it seems that the offending party is outside of Canadian jurisdiction. So the courts have no control over a foreign business but they do have some limited control over Google which does have a Canadian presence and which is indirectly involved as a third party service being used by the foreign business.

Re:Internet

[Darinbob]

Google is not half way around the world, it does have a legal and physical presence within Canada. And the cat in the tree does not fall under the jurisdiction of the Canadian courts. The company in question was in Canada but has dissolved and according to the judgement appears to be operating as a virtual online entity and carry on business despite court orders to shut down. So either the owners of that online business can not be found or they are not within Canada.

Re:Internet

[Darinbob]

The infringing web sites have existing court orders to completely shut down. The original company itself seems to not exist anymore except online, presumably with the defendants no longer residing in Canada.

Re:Internet

[TangoMargarine]

You argue the wisdom of having illegal acts, yet want to be able to erase the evidence that you did such illegal acts. I just can't figure out this logic. The whole "right to forget" sounds like it's a big setup for people to refuse to take responsibility for their actions. "He shouldn't be able to know that I murdered those people."

IIRC there have been several court cases already where people have tried to do pretty much exactly that.

Re:Internet

[TangoMargarine]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

On October 27, 2009, lawyers for Wolfgang Werlé who was convicted for murdering Walter Sedlmayr sent the Wikimedia Foundation a cease and desist letter requesting that Werlé's name be removed from the English language Wikipedia article Walter Sedlmayr, citing a 1973 Federal Constitutional Court decision that allows the suppression of a criminal's name in news accounts once he is released from custody.[20][21][22] Previously, the attorney for both men, Alexander H. Stopp, had won a default judgment in German court, on behalf of Lauber, against the Wikimedia Foundation.[20] According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Werlé's lawyers also challenged an Internet service provider in Austria which published the names of the convicted killers.[23]

Wikimedia is based in the United States, where the First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects freedom of speech and freedom of the press, under which the articles on Wikipedia would fall. In Germany, the law seeks to protect the name and likenesses of private persons from unwanted publicity.[24] On January 18, 2008, a court in Hamburg supported the personality rights of Werlé, which under German law includes removing his name from archive coverage of the case.[25]

Censoring the historical record like this will only make it more and more difficult to actually do research if we let it progress.

Re:Internet

[TangoMargarine]

The Right to Be Forgotten--Stanford Law Review

What scares me the most is:

But in announcing the regulation, Reding said she wanted it to be ambiguous so that it could accommodate new technologies in the future. “This regulation needs to stand for 30 years—it needs to be very clear but imprecise enough that changes in the markets or public opinion can be maneuvered in the regulation,”

I'll quote again what I call HungryHobo's Law: "If there's an insane way to apply a law which everyone dismisses as 'nobody would ever apply it like that' then you can bet your ass it will be abused exactly like that."

Re:Internet

[Adrian Lopez]

Sue the company who is making the illegal product and force them to take down all sites and advertisements.

As far as I know, the company making the "illegal" product is American. The company's website has not been shut down because it hasn't [yet] been found to have acted illegally by a US court. The BC court therefore wants Google to remove all links to a company that could very well be perfectly legal outside Canada.

Re:Internet

[kwbauer]

Unless you are talking about guns, then the analogy of tearing out the road is a 100% accurate description of the US liberal reaction and possibly the majority of /. as well.

Re:Internet

[BobMcD]

The judge is considering the needs of an individual, and attempting to find a way to protect him/her/it, for reasons that are private to that individual - and I hope shall forever remain private to that individual - from juggernaut corporations who have basically become a small monopoly in what was an open, equal-footing system

Isn't the better remedy to remove the web content, though, rather than the search results leading to the content?

Aren't they shooting the messenger?

Re:Internet

[TubeSteak]

So, will people really go out of their way and make a "black market" for this information? Only if it's actually valuable enough that they'd bother to find out if the internet didn't exist.

There are plenty of websites that exist solely to index and re-host booking photos and arrest reports.
They make their money by charging a fee for de-listing.

It's extortion, but it's legal.

Re:Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

The rationale for judgement enforcement was basically that if google ever wants to sue someone in Canada, they will be found in contempt of the previous order and will need to remediate before their own litigation can proceed.

Re:Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Fool - your "right to erase the past" infringes on everyone's right to be informed when THE INFORMATION IS WRONG.
Blows your mind to think about it, but you know, not EVERYTHING published on the interwebz about you is the verifiable gawdammed truth, and when someone publicly calls you a pederast and sexual deviant, that shit will stick to you til the day you die, and you'll wish you'd had the brains to campaign for a "right to erase the past".

Re:Internet

[TangoMargarine]

That was exactly the part I was talking about when I said:

Isn't this whole thing because people put undue weight on Internet slander anyway? We're trying to use a technological band-aid to fix a social problem.

It's like in juries if a lawyer says something outrageous and they strike it from the record...but the jury can't unhear it so it'll likely still influence them subconsciously.

Re:Internet

[david_thornley]

Thing is, that would require Google to adhere to all court orders from every country they have a physical presence in, and that would get ridiculous if Google had a physical presence in any fundamentalist Islamic country (and some of them are quite wealthy).

Re:Internet

[Darinbob]

That's part of the problem of expanding into other countries, you have to either accept their rules or stay out. Consider Google or Yahoo in the case of China. The only real news here is the court order that crosses borders, so that the order involving Google Canada also involves its parent company, AND because it's an internet thing which suddenly makes it more interesting to Slashdot.

Compare to an example of a court order that forbids a third party railroad line from transporting a particular product into the country.

Re:Internet

[lsatenstein]

At least the canadian judges do at least understand how the internet works, when they requested a global ban. However, rulings like these will create a (black?) market for disclosing information. The court is only giving more value to the information, not stopping it spreading.

The black market (detective agencies) work for many institutions where the prospects of hiring a senior technocrat or manager is crucial to that person being sparkling white lily clean.

This is going to make the detective job harder. They may actually have to visit in person, previous owners and individuals listed in their resumé

Re:Internet

[Stolpskott]

That's part of the problem of expanding into other countries, you have to either accept their rules or stay out. Consider Google or Yahoo in the case of China...

Compare to an example of a court order that forbids a third party railroad line from transporting a particular product into the country.

This is the part that I have a problem with - if a Canadian judge wants to mandate that all discussions of the health benefits of eating less Maple Syrup are blocked in Canada, I have no problem with that. If I live in Canada or if I live in China, then I expect what I see on the Internet to have to comply with local laws, and while I expect censorship in both Canada and China, I expect a hell of a lot more of it in China.
The precedent it sets, though, could allow a fundamentalist Islamic cleric to order Google to not index (and therefore censor) discussions about the interpretation of Islamic Sharia law so that his interpretation is dominant, not just in his country, but around the world as well.

This instance of the problem - a couple of embittered former employees of a company selling knock-off products - is not a bad idea. While I would like to know that they used to sell these goods, if I am looking to buy said equipment, I do not need to be able to see the actual site they were using as a sales portal. But the precedent it sets is a dangerous one.
Consider (not trying to derail the topic, honestly) the recent EU ruling that establishes the "right to be forgotten". If you look at it as the right for a woman who, as a dumb teenager, posted naked pictures of herself to show off a new tattoo, who now wants to see those pictures fade into obscurity, then it is a good thing. But many of the requests Google are receiving are from people who want to hide criminal convictions or other information which can legitimately fall under the heading of "in the Public Interest to know", so while Google can use that as a way to refuse the request, it shows that "good idea" precedents are often used to justify "bad idea" changes.

Re:Internet

[Sciath]

Not comparable. Indexes in a library (for example) was indexed by a librarian. Thus there was someone making decisions about what was available and indexed. I know an "indexer" and I know prior to the advent of the web, they exercised considerable discretion reflecting "community standards" in what was available in local libraries. So it's not like anything and everything has been accessible via other reference sources. Materials were routinely "screened" for libel, defamation, illegal (such as pornography, etc.), things that violated not only community standards but also the law. The web is a completely different animal. One can find all kinds of erroneous, libelous, slanderous, purposely fraudulent and illegal data sources there. Far different than indexes found in a library. And given the intellectual depth of the average person using the web, the web has become a free-for-all cesspool of all kinds of information including complete manufactured lies that people accept uncritically and at face value. The information in the web is not refereed by anyone or anything in regards to meeting any factual standards.

Re:Internet

[david_thornley]

I don't see the comparison. A court can forbid something physical from being imported. It can't forbid somebody in another country from attempting to export. Google.com sits in the internet, and allows itself to be accessed by all sorts of third-party data carriers. The correspondence is that Google.com is the product and the innumerable connections between it and canada are the railroad line.

Um, if I understand this correctly...

[Primate Pete]

Canada doesn't like the things that are imported to Canada from Country X, so they've decided to sue the printers in Country Y who publish maps of the roads to Country X?

Time to Learn Limits

[pubwvj]

It is time for the courts to learn that they do not have control outside their jurisdiction. Canada can not control what other people do in other countries. Google can store and release the data in other locations, other countries. Canada, at most, can only control what happens within their totalitarianism regime's boarders. If Canadians want a police state then they need to learn that the control ends at their borders. Time for Google to stand up and stomp down on these inanities.

Re:Time to Learn Limits

[Anonymous Coward]

Canada can not control what other people do in other countries.

What do you think America does all day?

Why does the NSA have the right to order MS and Apple to add a trojan to all (desktop) computers in the world?

Re:Time to Learn Limits

[u38cg]

Gosh, I wish I had years of training in multi-jurisdictional legal practice in order to be able to make such bold and sweeping statements.

Re:Time to Learn Limits

[Anonymous Coward]

NSA: American
MS: American Company
Apple: American Company

I don't disagree that America pushes its agenda on the rest of the world (and I'd rather that it didn't), but that's a terrible example you picked since there is no cross-jurisdictional issue in it.

Re:Time to Learn Limits

[petermgreen]

Canada can not control what other people do in other countries.

All governments control what people do through their ability to hand out punishments.

It's not unheard of for a country to enforce punishments on personell or assets located outside their borders (see the guy who leaked israelli nuclear program) but it's pretty rare because it is diplomatically expensive and in extreme cases could be considered an act of war.

What they can more easilly do though is impose punishments for activities outside their border on personnel and assets that are within their borders. For example they can impose a fine on google, if google refuses to pay they can confiscate googles canadian assets.

Re:Time to Learn Limits

[TangoMargarine]

So you're saying authorities *should* have power outside their jurisdictions? That seems like a pretty bold and sweeping (and problematic) statement.

Being an expert does not guarantee you make a good decision.

Re:Time to Learn Limits

[TangoMargarine]

They shouldn't. Don't make the mistake of thinking all Americans approve of their government's actions.

Re:Time to Learn Limits

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Google is free to not do business in Cananda ...

Their choice.

Re:Time to Learn Limits

[omnichad]

MS - International Company
Apple - International Company

How else are they going to offshore their profits to avoid taxes?

Re:Time to Learn Limits

[omnichad]

And by International, I think I mean Multinational - not sure what the proper term is.

Re:Time to Learn Limits

[ADRA]

A company that chooses to do business in a country (any country) is required to abide by the laws operating in said country or choose to remove itself from said country. If Google had a gambling arm in say barbedos and the US told them to shut it down, Google would be forced to comply or be forced to remove all business presense from the soverign US. Its as simple as that.

Now one could argue that the court in this case overreached in terms of what they 'should' have done, but its their right to do so as long as they're still complying with international commerce treaties that they've signed into.

Re:Time to Learn Limits

[Anonymous Coward]

(see the guy who leaked israelli nuclear program)

Asinine comparison.

Re:Time to Learn Limits

[vux984]

It is time for the courts to learn that they do not have control outside their jurisdiction.

Your argument is valid and I agree with you.

On the other hand, who DOES have jurisdiction over googles global index then? Just Google, and no one else?

Is it then completely judgement and enforcement proof? Or to wax poetic is it above all laws of men, and beholden to no one?

Re:Time to Learn Limits

[u38cg]

I am saying the problem is complex and requires some study before one can even have an informed understanding, much less have a strong opinion on it.

Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Jason Levine]

It looks like this judge fully understood the ramifications of stating that one nation's court could ban a company based in another country from displaying information in any country.

I will address here Google's submission that this analysis would give every state in the world jurisdiction over Google’s search services. That may be so. But if so, it flows as a natural consequence of Google doing business on a global scale, not from a flaw in the territorial competence analysis.

In other words, in this judge's opinion, since Google works on a global scale, they should be subject to the laws of all nations at once. Of course, all websites act on a global scale. Slashdot can be easily read in the United States, Canada, Australia, and likely even countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia. Does this mean that all websites need to obey all nations' laws at once? Where they conflict, are we bound by the most restrictive ones? So while the USA would give Freedom of Speech, we must hold by the stricter laws from some Middle East countries banning the insulting of a certain prophet. Also, we must never mention a certain Chinese square or the incident that happened there. We won't even get into North Korean laws. (I'm sure at least one person there has Internet access even if it is just "Glorious Leader.")

Thank you, Mr. Canadian Judge for imposing the world's conflicting and restrictive laws on the Internet. I'm sure that this will result in a vast improvement in Internet content. I can see the countries with restrictive laws drooling in anticipation already.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[myvirtualid]

Thank you, Mr. Canadian Judge

Just a little nit: Her title is Madam Justice Fenlon, so your expression of gratitude needs a tweak. :->

Re: Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Anonymous Coward]

But if Google has no prescience incanada the judge has no way of enforcing his judgement.

So if Google finds complying with Canadian laws too onerous it can remove itself from canada. Obviously that would mean it would be harder for google to obtain advertising funds from Canadian companies so they don't want to do that.

I doubt Iranian law will apply as google probably has no Iranian prescience to be subject to Iranian law.

Is that explained simply enough to get past peoples prejudices that only American law is valid?

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[lexarius]

There's a slight difference in that Google maintains physical offices and possibly datacenters in Canada. They only need to pay heed to countries in which they physically exist. Of course, Google could shut down physical operations in any country that dares try to legislate against it in a global fashion, but this has certain risks. You have to keep datacenters somewhere, after all, and preferably close to your customers.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[AmiMoJo]

In other words, in this judge's opinion, since Google works on a global scale, they should be subject to the laws of all nations at once.

Read it again a bit more carefully, he said "Google doing business on a global scale", so in other words Google must follow the laws of all countries where it does business. If they wanted to set up in North Korea they would have to abide by North Korean law, but for some reason they don't have an office there.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Anonymous Coward]

The judge decided that because Google operates on a global scale, it must conduct business in other countries according to all laws of all other countries.

So, does it also flow as a natural consequence of Canada enacting rules on a global scale that they too must follow all laws enacted and ruled upon by other countries?

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[xaxa]

She continues (I'll quote a lot, my emphasis at the end):

[141] Google gives as an example of such jurisdictional difficulties the case of Yahoo! Inc. v. La Ligue Contre Le Racism et L’Antisemitisme [Yahoo]. In 2000 two French anti-racism groups filed a suit in France against Yahoo alleging that Yahoo violated a French law prohibiting the display of Nazi paraphernalia by permitting users of its internet auction services to display and sell such artifacts. The plaintiffs demanded that Yahoo’s French subsidiary, Yahoo.fr, remove all hyperlinks to the parent website (Yahoo.com) containing the offending content. As in this case, Yahoo argued that the French Court lacked jurisdiction over the matter because its servers were located in the United States. The French Court held that it could properly assert jurisdiction because the damage was suffered in France and required Yahoo to “take all necessary measures” to “dissuade and render impossible” all access via yahoo.com by internet users in France to the Yahoo! internet auction service displaying Nazi artifacts, as well as to block internet users in France from accessing other online Nazi material: 145 F Supp 2d 1168 (ND Cal 2001) at 1172.

[142] Yahoo claimed that implementing the order would violate its First Amendment rights to freedom of expression and therefore could not be enforced in the United States. The French Court did not accept that submission. Yahoo initiated a suit in California against the French plaintiffs, and obtained a declaratory judgment that the French orders were constitutionally unenforceable in the United States, contrary to the first amendment. Addressing the issue of international comity, the Court reasoned that United States Courts will generally recognize and enforce foreign judgments but could not do so on the facts of that case because enforcement of the French orders would violate Yahoo’s constitutional rights to free speech: 169 F Supp 2d 1181 (ND Cal 2001) at 1192-1193. This decision was ultimately reversed on different grounds: 379 F 3d 1120 (9th Cir 2004), reheard in 433 F 3d 1199 (9th Cir 2006).

[143] Yahoo provides a cautionary note. As with Mareva injunctions, courts must be cognizant of potentially compelling a non-party to take action in a foreign jurisdiction that would breach the law in that jurisdiction. That concern can be addressed in appropriate cases, as it is for Mareva injunctions, by inserting a Baltic type proviso, which would excuse the non-party from compliance with the order if to do so would breach local laws.

[144] In the present case, Google is before this Court and does not suggest that an order requiring it to block the defendants’ websites would offend California law, or indeed the law of any state or country from which a search could be conducted. Google acknowledges that most countries will likely recognize intellectual property rights and view the selling of pirated products as a legal wrong.

Re: Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prescience

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[NotInHere]

Thank you, Mr. Canadian Judge for imposing the world's conflicting and restrictive laws on the Internet.

If the courts remain inactive, they will soon face strong international internet companies which build their own oligarch-controlled "states" that apply their own rules. Look at the restrictions on apple app store or the recent mega-troll made by amazon.

There is no global institution to apply rules to those companies. If you only apply the rules of their "home country", they like to choose the most liberal state as "home country" so that they can do what they want. Why did facebook chose Ireland for Europe?
Of course I'm against north korea enabling to forbid global internet access. Its hard to find a good solution to this problem, but to allow those huge companies to act like states is not the right direction. They are there to help the economy, not to play around with it.

The Internet can bring more freedom to people than anything else in the world, but it shouldn't be an anarchy. The outdated business model of the media companies shouldn't be fought by technology, but by politics.

Re: Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[LihTox]

Could they spin off Google Canada as a separate company? Google Canada would have to abide by the court's decision, but Google proper wouldn't be affected.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Tom]

Does this mean that all websites need to obey all nations' laws at once?

Ask yourself the opposite: Does it mean they need to obey no national laws? Or the least restrictive ones? I'm sure there's at least one country on this planet where child rape is illegal, or snuff movies, or if that's not extreme enough for you, life-feed child-rape-and-then-kill-afterwards video-on-demand.

Aside from a few fanatics, I think we agree that there is some limit, somewhere about what you can legally say or show. In some countries it is libel laws, in others it is copyright, in yet others it is politically motivated, and in many more it is based on laws to protect children or others who can't protect themselves.

At this point in time, we have no global agreement on those limits, but local laws. So the two alternatives really are as I outlined above - all nations or no nations.

Given those choices, I think the judge made the right call, because the alternative is anarchy. Which while some people romanticize it, basically means the guy with the bigger club will kill you for your sandwich. Especially among geeks I thought there's some understanding for what the rule of the strongest entails, and that it's not pretty.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[JimSadler]

With all those trees Canada surely has an abundance of squirrels. Apparently one squirrel is now a judge.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[WhatHump]

Does this mean that all websites need to obey all nations' laws at once?

No, it means that all websites have to tailor their content to the location of the viewer. There are lots of nations that have restrictions on internet content. I do not agree with this, as it destroys the open and global nature of the internet. However, there is no utopia, the world is a messy place, filled with politics and agendas, and the powers that be will break the internet to suit their needs.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Jason Levine]

If the judge said that Google had to remove the item from Google.ca, the Canadian Google website, I'd have said Google should comply with it with no problem. The problem arises when a judge says that, thanks to laws in Canada, someone in the United States (or any other country) can't see certain content. How do you allow one country to mandate what the entire world is allowed to see without descending into a tangled web of restrictive laws banning all but the most innocuous content?

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Jason Levine]

True, but they also maintain Google.ca for Canadian users. So perhaps they remove it from their Canadian website. Why should they also remove it from a data center in California, the UK, or Australia just because the Canadian judge says it violated Canadian law? If you allow this then you allow any country to set rules for how a company can act even if that portion of the company isn't in the country in question.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Jason Levine]

Good point. Slashdot doesn't have an edit function, so consider it changed-if-I-could-edit-the-post. ;-)

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[thaylin]

The opposite of all nations is not no nations, the opposite is less than all nations. While that set includes no nations that is not exactly a choice because the company still has to obey the laws in which it resides And because of that your analogies does not work. Following your logic all data in the internet would soon be scrubbed because all companies, including those repressive ones, would want data they do not like removed from the internet.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[TangoMargarine]

Or Option B (AKA "the Muslim option"*)--we just cut off Canada from the Internet. That should have the same effect, right?

* I assume I'll get modded down for this, but it seems like the only way to solve the whole "how dare you post pictures of Allah/Mohammed/anything we don't like" issue without just removing the offending content, the idea of which I find repugnant (the removing). Although it still seems like a long shot from previous articles where the viewpoint sounded like "just because we can't see it, we still know it exists."

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[c]

In other words, in this judge's opinion, since Google works on a global scale, they should be subject to the laws of all nations at once.

I think it's more that Google has a physical and legal presence in Canada (and many other countries to some degree or another), and hence a Canadian court order can apply to their entire business. The consequence of not following that order is that there are Google people in Canada who can be jailed for not following that order.

Companies who are only physically present in one country but have a web presence wouldn't be affected by court orders outside of their own country since that leverage doesn't exist, and many (if not most) foreign courts would likely toss a case due to lack of jurisdiction. In countries where a multi-national might have a small and/or expendable presence (i.e. a local shell company staffed by contractors), they could get away with ignoring a local court order with minimal risk (i.e. they might lose their .xx TLD).

No doubt Google Canada is set up as a separate subsidiary corporation and they think that there should be some sort of legal firewall at the political boundaries, but the funny thing about multi-national corporations is that these firewalls are always quite permeable when it comes to money flowing in a particular direction. So, why can't court orders follow the money?

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[TangoMargarine]

life-feed

Live feed? Or was that a rather grisly pun intended? :-/

The proper approach is to block them locally. If people find ways to route around it, too bad, so sad. If you want to screw with your own people, fine. If you try to abide by all parties' standards worldwide, I guarantee you one of the first ones in line will be certain theocracies blocking all our porn, probably 90% of our TV/movies (since they're all sexual one way or another, really), and all religions but their own.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[thaylin]

Shouldn't it be the "religious options" The same things you are quoting Muslims of having issues with Christians and other religious have as well... Book burnings anyone?

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[TangoMargarine]

Would people actually benefit from seeing (some subset of) things that offend them? A lot of those things for a lot of people are social prejudices.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[TangoMargarine]

It's probably a problem of perception, but from what I hear it seems the Muslims shout the loudest about it. And they also control the government in a number of countries, whereas the Westboro Baptists are just a couple dozen cunts in some random community with no political power.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[WhatHump]

People in power would benefit. China suppresses information on the Tiannamen Square protests. A politician would benefit from hiding a scandal or criminal record. "Knowledge is power" but so is the suppression of knowledge.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[swillden]

There's a slight difference in that Google maintains physical offices and possibly datacenters in Canada.

Slight correction. Google has offices in Canada, but no data centers: http://www.google.com/about/da...

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Jason Levine]

To be fair, it's the "control the government" part that's important, not which religion it is. If the WBC somehow got in control of the US government, you can be sure that the United States would quickly resemble a radical Christian version of some of the radical Muslim countries. Of course, the WBC has zero chance of doing this, but other fundamentalist religious groups have candidates either in office or with serious backing to take office. Those candidates then try to craft laws based on "Religion X says this is bad so we need to ban it for everyone." It's not nearly as bad as the radical Muslim countries, but it's still bad and should be stopped.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Anonymous Coward]

Canada already has incredibly restrictive laws on free speech. For example, most members of the westboro baptist "church" would be jailed in Canada under hate speech laws.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Jason Levine]

The problem with this reasoning, then, is that any multi-national corporation would need to follow the laws of every land they operate in - across their entire organization. Say Google opened Google Saudi Arabia, would they be required to force all female staff to cover their entire bodies in public - even female staff in California? If they didn't, Google would be violating Saudi Arabian law. Sure, it wouldn't be violating it *within* Saudi Arabia, but the "violation" would be there as would be the Google subsidiary.

What if Google also opened a subsidiary in a country that banned garb like that required by Saudi Arabian law? How do they follow both laws at once across their entire organization?

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Tom]

The proper approach is to block them locally.

Is it? Strange, we rage against the Big Wall of China every opportunity we get, don't we? And we don't want national Internet filters, do we? But the logical conclusion from your argument is exactly that.

If you try to abide by all parties' standards worldwide, I guarantee you one of the first ones in line will be certain theocracies

Absolutely, yes. I didn't say it was the ultimate solution. But given the two alternatives available to a judge to choose from at this time, his choice was the better one.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Tom]

The opposite of all nations is not no nations, the opposite is less than all nations.

So, who decides which nations laws count and which nations laws don't? You're on thin ice there, my friend.

the company still has to obey the laws in which it resides

Multinational corporations reside in dozens of countries. This simply moves the goalpost. Which laws do they have to respect? Can they pick? If so, we have the hwole tax haven mess all over again.

Following your logic all data in the internet would soon be scrubbed because all companies, including those repressive ones, would want data they do not like removed from the internet.

No, following my logic, if you're a judge and you have to decide if your judgement applies to a company or does not apply just because they're multinational, making it apply is the better choice between those two.

Re: Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Anonymous Coward]

yes yes, I can't type worth a shit on a an iPad in a 5 minute fag break.. but I thought my wisdom so profound that taking the comment in context the odd typo was worthwhile.

My wisdom profound? O.K. I need to break my slashdot habit it is affecting my higher reasoning functions

Re: Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Anonymous Coward]

You should actually look up the history of the Canadian supreme court. Canadian judges are actually very progressive and logical. They've over-turned marijuana and prostitution laws.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Tom]

RTFA. Google already removed it from google.ca

But you can reach google.com or any other "national" google domain just as easily from Canada. The judge was smart enough to understand that.

How do you allow one country to mandate what the entire world is allowed to see without descending into a tangled web of restrictive laws banning all but the most innocuous content?

The very court order linked to in the summary debates this question at length, with several pages of reasoning and listing of arguments for both sides. I refer you to that, as you've obviously not read it.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[TangoMargarine]

I was going on the assumption that they are going to implement Right to Forget one way or another and it was just a question of implementation. Personally, I don't see that it's a good idea in the first place, but I'm open to arguments to the contrary.

But given the two alternatives available to a judge to choose from at this time, his choice was the better one.

Better one with an aim to accomplish his objective, sure. Better in regards to the rights of the other 99.5% of the world's population who *don't* live in his country? No.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Anonymous Coward]

You are totally right. Our egalitarian and just society protects us all from the guys with the bigger club.

Oh wait a minute...

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Tom]

Better one with an aim to accomplish his objective, sure. Better in regards to the rights of the other 99.5% of the world's population who *don't* live in his country? No.

His objective is that law should not become meaningless just because you own two domain names. I'm fairly sure the majority of that part of the 99.5% who know what domain names are would agree to that.

Read the whole reasoning, it's the first link in the summary. He actually thinks this through.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[c]

What if Google also opened a subsidiary in a country that banned garb like that required by Saudi Arabian law? How do they follow both laws at once across their entire organization?

Generally speaking, if the corporation can demonstrate that it's not possible to implement the law of all countries it operates in, and within any one country it *does* follow the laws of that country, that's good enough.

The problem is, if you actually read this particular ruling, Google didn't actually demonstrate that. Their argument was, in a nutshell, "we're a global operation, the database is hosted outside your country, so your order doesn't apply to anything except .ca".

Where the database is hosted doesn't matter because it's pretty much a given that google.ca and google.com and google.* are essentially the same place. If google.ca can have a result blocked, that same flag can be applied globally. So that argument doesn't really pass the giggle test.

The fact that Google (or Twitter, or Facebook, or...) normally only blocks certain content in the country that ordered the block is a corporate policy decision, not a technical or legal limitation. Child porn, for example, is something they can and will block globally. But corporate policy is not the law in any particular country.

So, that leaves the "we're a global operation" argument. And the judges response to that argument was, pretty much, "Good. Then you can block it globally, too."

In other words, someone made an assumption that all you have to do to stop a court ruling at the border is to point out that there's a border. The judge didn't buy it. Better luck in appeals court.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[IcyWolfy]

The better situation is -- as a multinational company, they will have to obey all the laws of all the countries they operate within.

They can avoid this by closing the international centres and being located fully within the US.

But then, they would have to pay taxes. As they can't offshore their taxes from country to country; subsidiary to subsidiary to reduce liability to 0$.

So. Is less taxes worth more legal obligations -- for them, the answer is probably yes.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[TangoMargarine]

You're still arguing from your initial presumption that the "needs" of his country take priority over those of the rest of the entire world. You can argue eight ways from Sunday from this foundation and you're not likely to change my mind on the matter. There's little point in me reading his arguments through, because I can already guess what they are from the summary/article/you and I reject them on principle. This seems to be what is making you so angry.

I'm fairly sure the majority of that part of the 99.5% who know what domain names are would agree to that.

You think the majority of Internet users would consent to some random judge in a foreign country telling them what they can and can't access? You give them an inch, and they'll take a mile.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[thaylin]

The opposite of all nations is not no nations, the opposite is less than all nations.

So, who decides which nations laws count and which nations laws don't? You're on thin ice there, my friend.

They follow the laws in each country when doing business in that country only, as it has been for ages..

the company still has to obey the laws in which it resides

Multinational corporations reside in dozens of countries. This simply moves the goalpost. Which laws do they have to respect? Can they pick? If so, we have the hwole tax haven mess all over again.

It does no such thing. see my statement above. They still have to obey the law, but only with regard to buisness in that country, otherwise you have competing laws/contrary and you have to shut down because of said laws. The only goal post moving here is by this judge

Following your logic all data in the internet would soon be scrubbed because all companies, including those repressive ones, would want data they do not like removed from the internet.

No, following my logic, if you're a judge and you have to decide if your judgement applies to a company or does not apply just because they're multinational, making it apply is the better choice between those two.

That is not what this ruling does, and you know it. The judge in Canada has jurisdiction in Canada, therefore her rulings only affect Canada. You can force them to block the content in Canada, but she cannot force it to be not shown elsewhere.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[CODiNE]

Looks like it's time for an international body to "kindly" step in and make these kinds of global decisions for everyone. I'm sure several are writing up proposals as we speak.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[thaylin]

False dilemma. Having 2 names has no bearing on this at all. The judge can require that it not be shown in Canada AT ALL, meaning having 2 websites accessible from Canadian locations would not matter, and therefore the law is not meaningless.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[thaylin]

But the judge was not smart enough to realize that she could have ruled that Google block access to the sites via Canadian IPs and stayed well within her jurisdiction.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Wookact]

I read it and the conclusion was completely wrong.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[ADRA]

Slashdot most likely only has a business presense on American soil, so its doubtfull that a foreign nation could lawfully enforce their laws on the company; but they could issue arrest orders for any company employees entering said country if they chose to take such a strict response (or seize any assets they could get their hands on).

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Tom]

They follow the laws in each country when doing business in that country only, as it has been for ages..

You've missed the point, by about one AE.

The whole issue at hand is when Google is considered to be "in that country" - in fact, this point has been given about 2 pages of discussion in the judges order. Did you even read that?

They still have to obey the law, but only with regard to buisness in that country

Same as above, you miss the point. The whole discussion is about when "doing business in that country" applies and when not. Again, the judge gave this ample consideration. Read it, it's not stupid.

You can force them to block the content in Canada, but she cannot force it to be not shown elsewhere.

I read the court order. I don't think the judge cares if someone in Iran can get the content or not. What I gather is that he's basically saying: "You must not make this content available to Canadians. If your business is set up in such a way that the only way to do that is to remove it globally, then that's your problem because you've decided to set up your business in this way."

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Tom]

It's not the judges job to determine the technical solution. It would've been Googles job to offer up an alternative.

As I read it, the judge is basically saying: "I want this gone in my jurisdiction, and if you set up your business such that all your other google.* are available in my jurisdiction, you've gotta take it down there as well, because it's not my problem how you set up your business."

And that's the correct answer from a judge. You shouldn't be able to skip past laws just because you've set up your corporate or legal structure in some specific way.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Tom]

True, he could've, but then we're back in national Internet filters and Big Wall of China territory. Do you really prefer that?

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Tom]

You're still arguing from your initial presumption that the "needs" of his country take priority over those of the rest of the entire world.

Wrong, I never had that presumption. But I know judges and how they think (been in court rooms as part of my last job). Their general attitude is that they rule over their jurisdiction and their cases, and that the rest of the world can take care of itself. As such, the judge will rule what he thinks necessary to enforce his order. It's not that he thinks the rest of the world is less important, it's that he thinks the rest of the world can watch out for itself and doesn't need him thinking for them. That's a huge difference.

here's little point in me reading his arguments through, because I can already guess what they are from the summary/article/you and I reject them on principle

Are you for real?

Seriously?

You don't need to read an original argument that is one link away and not all that long, because random people on the Internet talk about it and that's all you need to know?

Sorry, my fault. I had mistaken you for someone that one could have a discussion with.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[TangoMargarine]

Wow, I had actually gotten to the point where I think we understand each other, and then you decide to throw some insults in my face at the last moment. Arguing on /. is so much fun.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[thaylin]

No, it is not. The correct answer from a judge is not, oh well I will just trample on the jurisdictions outside of my own. That shows a lack of understanding oh how the internet works.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[thaylin]

Dude, the whole "did you read the decision" is nonsense, I read it, and it IS stupid. It showed that she lacked an understanding of the internet.. You dont seem to understand, this is not about "You must not make this content available to Canadians", her order, as she stated is remove it completely from the internet everywhere, regardless of if your business can block it only locally...

And that you dont realize that, and that you dont realize it is a FEMALE judge makes me come to the conclusion that you really did not read this all that thoroughly.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[thaylin]

I would prefer local country based censorship then global censorship, YES.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[HiThere]

Hmmmnf. In order to properly obey this law they need to put data centers in Canada that maintain a global index for use by the Canadian Google (google.ca?). Then they could properly remove the site from their global index...for google.ca.

If they just remove the entry from google.ca entries that are kept in another country, the legal precedent if bad.

The best solution would be for Google to spin off separate shell corporations for each country in which it does business, and equip them with the computers that run Google within that country. Then each national sub-Google would be bound with obeying the laws of that particular country.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Anonymous Coward]

If the choice is between:
1) A country can force censorship of content within its borders, or
2) A country can force censorship of content EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD.

Then, yes, I prefer to be "back in national Internet filters and Big Wall of China territory".
Because the other option is to require that *I* have to live inside "Big Wall of China territory", even if I'm not living in China.

If Canada can force Google to remove a link from it's global index, so can China, and a wide variety of other countries. How you miss that is beyond me, and the rest of the sane people.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[AnOnyxMouseCoward]

I think it's follow the laws of every land they operate in, for operations that impact that land. Example, google.com can be reached in Canada, therefore is impacted.

In your female staff clothing analogy, it would be "all Google employees within Saudi Arabia must be covered", including traveling staff members from California. It doesn't mean staff in CA need to follow Saudi law. Now yes, if Saudi Arabia said "no link to anything with a picture of the Prophet", then using this judgement as precedent (if Google decides to obey it) everyone worldwide would no longer be able to search for pictures of Muhammad. That's kind of problematic, given the crazy governments out there, but I think the jurisdiction question is a valid one in the Internet world.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Jason Levine]

Ok, then how about Google being ordered to remove all links to websites that feature images of women not dressed in burkas because Google has a Saudi Arabian subsidiary (either theoretical for purposes of this example or actual if they happen to really have one)? Should Google comply with that order and remove all links, Google+ posts, YouTube videos, etc across all of Google.com/Google Plus/YouTube/etc that feature women who aren't in burkas?

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Tom]

And that you dont realize that, and that you dont realize it is a FEMALE judge makes me come to the conclusion that you really did not read this all that thoroughly.

I was just waiting for that to come up, because it was so obvious and clear in your initial response. As if the gender of the judge matters at all to the argument at hand, but I guess when you run out, you grasp at straws. :-)

Dude, the whole "did you read the decision" is nonsense, I read it, and it IS stupid. It showed that she lacked an understanding of the internet.. You dont seem to understand, this is not about "You must not make this content available to Canadians", her order, as she stated is remove it completely from the internet everywhere, regardless of if your business can block it only locally...

Re-read 144, 148, 159 of the courts order.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Tom]

If Canada can force Google to remove a link from it's global index, so can China, and a wide variety of other countries. How you miss that is beyond me, and the rest of the sane people.

The part you miss is the difference between a court order against one particular company and the filtering and censorship of all Internet traffic for all citizens.

Because once you have the filtering/censorship infrastructure in place, it can be easily abused for every other purpose, with no transparency or oversight.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[AnOnyxMouseCoward]

If you're asking me? No, obviously. Do I think the website in question (that sells copied, fake products) should be taken off? Yes. You used burkas in your example, but what if in a country child porn is legal and Google starts linking to those easily on their global index, would you want to get that removed? If no, you're a sick bastard, and if yes, then how is this different? Keep in mind the case is about a website violating copyright laws and selling fake product, which would get them taken down internationally (and there is a court order for that, except they're not in Canada).

The question is, should the Internet (or at least Google) be policed in some way? If yes, who does it, and where do those powers stop? If it's one country, what about all the countries that this impacts that have no say? If it's all countries, how manageable is it? If it's Google, who keeps Google in check? You have to admit the judge raised a valid question.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[myvirtualid]

Yeah, /. needs both an edit function and a +1.

Re: Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact that is what multinational corporations inevitably do and for that reason among many others.

However, in many places (including Ontario) you need natural persons to act as directors, and they are personally liable for the corporate entity in respect to many court judgements. If those persons are not locally resident it is very common that the courts in which they *are* resident will accept judicial comity and will allow at least some set of possible judgements to be enforced by the local courts. So a director of an Ontario company living in Nevada (for example) may get a visit from a Nevada bailiff enforcing on a money judgement made by an Ontario court.

Additionally, where there is an obvious effort to escape personal liability through obscurement the controlling interest doctrine comes into play in many private law systems - that again means that a non-Ontario person might find her or his local court enforcing an Ontario judgement on that basis, even if the judgement relates to an Ontario corporation for which the non-Ontario person is not a director or shareholder -- the non-Ontario person merely has to effectively control the actions of the Ontario corporation. If it takes the other parties and the courts a lot of time and resources to determine the controlling interest question, an order for costs against the controlling interest -- no matter what the outcome on the main question of liability -- is fairly likely in some jurisdictions.

So a Google Canada (incorporated in Ontario for instance; there are other options) might find its resident-in-Canada directors having to go personally out of pocket if a judgement like this is ignored by Google (USA) or Google (UK). Director liability insurance would cover it the first time and then skyrocket. Few to no directors would take on personal liability on behalf of Google (Global). Additionally, if there are directors not resident in Ontario, they could also find themselves faced with going personally out of pocket if some subsidiary of Google ignores the judgement, with again additional costs to the company in insurance etc. Finally, directors' insurance policies are generally themselves limited, so a wilful breach of a judicial order -- no matter where -- is likely not going to be covered. Insurance also cannot cover other possible outcomes such as a ban on a particular natural person holding any directorships at all arising from a complaint by a court to companies regulators, which are often taken seriously even where the principle of judicial comity cannot be used in particular circumstances. Finally, directors caught up in an adverse judgement may *also* become liable to the shareholders individually, or even just kicked off the board (and out of the insurance scheme) at a shareholders' general meeting.

Re:Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Anonymous Coward]

GOOD !!!

Will Google comply?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am thinking they will not. Canada does not have the right to destroy information outside of its jurisdiction.

Re:Will Google comply?

[Anonymous Coward]

But they apparently do have the right to compel a company operating in their jurisdiction to do so. Ah, Slashdot...come for the tech news, stay for the ignorant and incorrect armchair legal analysis.

Re:Will Google comply?

[stenvar]

I am thinking they will not. Canada does not have the right to destroy information outside of its jurisdiction.

A Canadian court has jurisdiction over businesses in Canada and can enforce its rulings by fining them or stopping them from operating. Google can certainly refuse to comply, but they may have to stop doing business in Canada, and the Canadian court could block them.

I think the Canadian court is wrong, but don't make the mistake of thinking that these kinds of laws and rulings have no teeth. I also think that such rulings hurt the country issuing more than anybody else.

Re:Will Google comply?

[Jason Levine]

The problem is that Google could remove the content from Google.ca - the Canadian Google website - but why should they be compelled to remove it from the Google sites that serve other countries as well? If your answer is "because someone from Canada could reach that site and thus see the content", then we're back to "Google has to obey all the laws in every country they operate in, even just a little bit, including all the conflicting laws, simultaneously across their entire operation."

Re:Will Google comply?

[mark-t]

Because one can, within Canada, quite easily access google.com?

Re:Will Google comply?

[Jason Levine]

One can, within Saudi Arabia, easily access Google.com. Does this means that Google if Google opened a Saudi Arabian subsidiary (not sure if they have one already), they would be forced to remove - on Google.com for all web users - links to any site showing women wearing clothing that doesn't completely cover them?

Re:Will Google comply?

[mark-t]

Unfortunately yes... or else remove all of their physical presence from that country.

Asking Google to pull entirely out of Canada, however, would be economically damaging to both parties (and it's escalated nowhere near that far yet). The question to ask here is do the courts actually care?

Re:Will Google comply?

[Anonymous Coward]

They incorporate it as an independent business entity that licenses the Google name from Google.ie . Then when that somebody demands they remove something, google.com just tells them to stuff it and file the lawsuit in the USA because they don't take orders from licensees.

Re:Will Google comply?

[mark-t]

Said licensee can still be denied the right to do business in Canada, however.

Re:Will Google comply?

[Triklyn]

wouldn't that be discrimination of some kind? blocking the incorporation and business activities of one corporate entity because of the actions of an entirely separate corporate entity?

Re:Will Google comply?

[mark-t]

There's no law prohibiting such discrimination, however. It might be perceived as unfair, at best.... unethical, even, at worst... but definitely not illegal.

Re:Will Google comply?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just move google.ca to some other place not in Canada and then it becomes moot...

Re:Will Google comply?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, this is a STATE court, not the Canadian's supreme court. It does not have the power to act for Canada.

What is truly wrong here is that Google isn't event part of the trial. X sue Y and Google gets a "stop doing business here" judgement. This is as if two of your neighbors goes to court and the judge gave you a judgement to leave your house as part of the ruling.

From the judgment:
"[76] The majority of [edited] sales occur outside Canada. Thus, quite apart from the practical problem of endless website iterations, the option Google proposes is not equivalent to the order now sought which would compel Google to remove the defendantsÃ(TM) websites from all search results generated by any of GoogleÃ(TM)s websites worldwide."

In short the court is clearly trying to pass judgment outside of its jurisdiction because the core of the issue wasn't in its jurisdiction to begin with. The plaintiff wants the defendant to stop advertising its counterfeited product on the internet... Outside Canada.

I hope this judgement gets grounded in worthless mud.

Re:Will Google comply?

[stenvar]

The problem is that Google could remove the content from Google.ca - the Canadian Google website - but why should they be compelled to remove it from the Google sites that serve other countries as well?

I'm passing judgment on it. I'm just saying that Canada can, if it so chooses, seize Google's Canadian assets, block Google's IP addresses, and stop Canadians from doing business with Google; those are within its power as a Canadian court, without messing in the affairs of any other nation. Therefore, legally, they "have the right" to tell Google what they are telling Google.

Whether it is wise for a Canadian court to take all those steps in an attempt to force Google to do something is another question altogether, because there would likely be serious international economic and political repercussions.

There goes Google

[LordLucless]

Google had better reject this order, or it's all downhill from here.

Germany orders Google to remove all mentions of Nazis. Saudi Arabia orders Google to remove all mentions of alcohol and extra-marital sex. The US orders Google to remove all mentions of the leaks published by Snowden/Manning/Assange.

How long until nothing is left, when every country in the world can expunge whatever they don't like?

Re:There goes Google

[nblender]

At least we'd have cat photos.

Re:There goes Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Not likely to happen.....

In most cases it works in the state's best interest to keep this information out there as a kind of bait. Kinda like the same reason why cars, are not locked to the maximum legal speed.....if they did that, they would almost overnight kill a highly lucrative revenue stream for governments.

So in Germany for example, if somebody annoyed the state enough, it would not be too hard for them to dig up somebody's history of visiting nazi sites to discredit them.

Re:There goes Google

[reikae]

Also there's the fact that one company has the power to expunge whatever they don't like.

Re:There goes Google

[ADRA]

Google has the right to do business with any country that they choose, and if they don't want to follow the rule of law in said country, then they can bail out of it, much like what they did with China.

Re:There goes Google

[ADRA]

As dominant as they are in the search market, they are not a monopoly, nor do they leverage search as a carrot/stick for other products and services (at least they're in the lines of the law in most jurisdictions).

Re:There goes Google

[GonzoPhysicist]

Then you find it using a different search engine. It just shows why the way they implement "right to be forgotten" doesn't make sense.

Re:There goes Google

[Solandri]

That actually gets to the real heart of the matter. Going after Google for this or the European right to be forgotten thing is shooting the messenger. Google doesn't actually host the content in question, and removing it from their index doesn't actually make the content disappear. The only reason it ranked highly in a Google search is because lots of websites linked to it, so removing it from Google's index won't stop people from getting to the info via the intermediary sites. It is literally like sticking your head in the sand in hopes it'll make the bad thing go away.

Cut them off.

[Jaysyn]

I think it's time Google started cutting countries off when they pull stupid shit like this. Canada isn't even 40 million people.

Re:Cut them off.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that's the idea. One way for the government to stop their subjects having access to too much information while maintaining plausible deniability.

Before we get too high on our horses...

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't Google already do this, for child porn among other things?

Imagine someone posting detailed drawings of top secret US military hardware. Di you think for a moment that the US govt wouldn't demand - and get - the same thing?

DMCA

[Anonymous Coward]

This is how we in Europe feel when you use DMCA to censor content. It does niot just affect US.
Or when microsoft have to provide my email history to US goverment even tho my data is in Europe.

I say this article is old news for the rest of the world

Just wait. . .

[smooth wombat]

until the Scientologists start asking to have all the web sites which outline their seedy, extortionist processes to be removed.

Sorry folks, you posted something on the web, it's available to everyone and this nonsense about removing web sites is completely anathema to the concept of the WWW.

Re:Just wait. . .

[Jason Levine]

Or until they get someone in power in some country Google operates in who declares discussing psychiatry online to be illegal. All those psychiatry websites will need to be delinked ASAP!

Re:Just wait. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

"you posted something on the web" - No, I didn't, it was my competitor.

"removing web sites is completely anathema to the concept of the WWW" - Citation needed.

Re:Just wait. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Google just provides the links. If something is illegal, the courts need to go after the website, not the search engine.

Maybe, just maybe, Google should retaliate by blocking all Canadian IP addresses from accessing any Google service, whether it be google.ca, google.com, gmail.com, advertising services, etc. Completely block them with the message, "Sorry, we don't wish to abide by the ruling in Equustek Solutions Inc. v. Jack, so we opted to block all Canadians from doing business with us."

Re:Just wait. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen to my sister comment.
Citation is needed about your reference "to the concept of the WWW."
I thought that the world wide web was meant to improve the layout from the strict requirements of Gopher, which did not permit markup of the "menu pages" that provided hyperlinks.
Now, this may fly in the face of the ideals that were held during the widespread expansion of the Internet during the 1990s, but those same proponents were also discussing the benefits of anonymity when using an important Internet protocol like Usenet. Ah, the glorious days before commercially funded cyber attacks were quite so common... A person could be considered to be highly interested in protecting data if they went to extreme measures like including a numeral in their FTP password.
Contrary to somebody's mother's belief, there is some difference between the concept of the "world wide web" and the concept known as "the Internet".
By mentioning WWW, you've narrowed the focus from all Internet communications to the sub-topic of the world wide web. However, the concept you're referring to is not in any way specific to the WWW. Hence why some of us lawn-guarders are requesting citations.

Just Google?

[TQL]

<tt>I know that a lot of people making these legal decisions might not be the most technical but surely they realise that Google is not the only search engine and that removing something from one search provider's index does not make the information magically disappear.<br><br>Since this is not the first request (and you can guarantee it won't be the last either), does anyone else find it a bit suspicious that many of them appear to be singling Google out? I have seen the odd report where Bing (Microsoft) and Yahoo have been presented with similar take down orders but it doesn't appear to be on the same scale.</tt>

Re:Just Google?

[thaylin]

Better question, why would you use the beta?

Re:Just Google?

[orgelspieler]

Better-er question: why use the teletype tag? It's non-standard.

This order cannot stand

[jjo]

I fully expect this order to be reversed, either by judicial or by legislative action. I say this because Google cannot possibly accept this precedent, since their business simply couldn't operate if it had to comply worldwide with the laws of every country it does business in. At the last resort, Google would pull out of Canada rather than accept this order, and the Canadians are sensible enough to see that as something they really do not want.

Re:This order cannot stand

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, all US tech companies should pull out of Canada until this judge is imprisoned.

Re:This order cannot stand

[mark-t]

So what do you suggest that Canadians do? Move?

Care to take a guess at what a pain the ass that might be? Also, one could probably kiss their career goodbye unless one already has plenty of connections in the destination country relevant to their field.

Re:This order cannot stand

[mark-t]

I think that a ruling of this nature shows that the court probably did not actually consider that Google could or might pull entirely out of Canada as a result of this (which would be somewhat economically harmful to Google as well, by the way, so there's definitely some disincentive for Google to go through with that), and even if they did, that they both a) doubt that Google would actually do it; and b) actually do not really care about (or possible even realize) the consequences of such an outcome.

Even though the websites that are supposed to be blocked are genuinely criminal (resorting to highly unethical behavior for commercial gain), and that I sincerely hope will get rounded up sooner rather than later, and who are apparently operating physically outside of Canada's jurisdiction (their Canadian physical presence was shut down a couple of years ago), the worst case scenario I can see from this is that Google pulls out of Canada, and Canada is stuck with implementing its own firewall similar to China's to filter all of google's results.

Re:This order cannot stand

[jjo]

I'm not suggesting that anyone move anywhere. I'm just saying that just as Google pulled out of mainland China to escape an intolerable legal system, it would pull out of Canada if this order were allowed to stand. One presumes that most of the Google Canada employees would look for jobs at other companies in Canada, and that Canadians would switch from google.ca to google.com (or perhaps to google.fr). Everyone would be the poorer for this.

Just Google?

[TQL]

<tt>(and why did Slashdot Beta just fill my post with un-interpreted HTML tags??)</tt>

You Go Canada, Eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah Ba-by, You Go Canada.. Who in the hell does this g00gle company think they are and who gave them the keys to the kingdom???

Take Off, Eh?

Easy solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Remove incompetent judges
Disband illegal companies
Disband undemocratic powers

Captcha: daybreak

What I like most...

[advid.net]

... is that Google used to mention that some links were remove from search results by court order, and thus mention the order which has the links in question... :D

The time is right!

[Rambo Tribble]

Look for "Team Canada, World (Thought) Police" at a theater, (oh, sorry, "theatre"), near you!

Google Franshise

[ZombieBraintrust]

It seems Google should restructure its operations. It should split it search buisness into sepperate legal entities for some regions. These Google franshise's would purchase index data from the parent company. The franshise would have there own servers and have control over there own site. That Canada franshise would have servers in Canada and would sell advertisments on the Google.ca site. The parent company would keep all its assest in CA.

Re:Google Franshise

[Anonymous Coward]

I could be wrong, but wouldn't it be much harder to dodge taxes that way?

Re:Google Franshise

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually that sounds like exactly the scheme tax attorneys recommend, but whatever.

There is a lot of realpolitik in this, IMVHO. Courts can make decisions about their own jurisdictions, which is farcical: I decide myself king of everything! Judges can order absolutely anything, really anything, and the part where they explain their reasoning is meant to extend their power even further by setting precedent and is not the actual reason the order must be followed. However, if you look at countries where coups are routine, courts are not taken seriously there, and are even coerced into rubber-stamping the actions of the rest of government with the implied threat of being taken less seriously. This is the path on which Canada took its first step today.

Re:Google Franshise

[Anonymous Coward]

LMFTFY:

...The parent company would keep all its assest in Ireland.

Also, assets.

Re:Google Franshise

[ADRA]

It would be harder to channel profits back into the hands of root company investors which was much of the 99%'s complaints about corporate tax repatriation, etc.. Anyways, if the parent company owned more than a certain percentage of child company, I believe they fall within the same jurisdictional liability of child company, though I'm not certain how this would work on international levels. Maybe if they had two subsidiaries, one Google Data Inc., the other Google Canada Inc where two subsidiaries fed each other. Anyways, IANAL so its all just speculation on my part.

Re:Google Franshise

[ZombieBraintrust]

I would have the parent company own 0% of the child companies. Parent would make 100% of its money as a holding company selling access to the index. Franchise would make marginal profits based on how well the sell ads. Of course I'm not a lawyer so this could be a stupid idea.

Website Removal From Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean my Canadian website will no longer be shown in search results? If so, it's basically going to kill my business and there will certainly be no reason to pay Adsense anything to get my site into the search results.

Google needs to get ahead of this...

[sigmabody]

Google's only really viable option, as far as I can tell, is to create a tailored censored portal for each country (really, legal jurisdiction, but basically the same thing), and allow anyone in that jurisdiction to request that anything be censored in an automated manner. Then they can create an "uncensored" jurisdiction, which you would need to opt into, with a disclaimer and such.

Once you have that, you can much more effectively fight these sort of "censor for the entire world" orders, by asserting that you already support per-jurisdiction "removal", and to remove globally would violate the rights of other jurisdictions to self-censor as appropriate. It's not perfect (nothing in international law is), but at least it would give Google a way to somewhat comply with the flood of censorship demands which are coming, without trying to fight each new demand independently.

BC needs Google time out

[Anonymous Coward]

The judge's logic chain to claim jurisdiction over Google included the ruling that Google Canada did an advertising business in BC and the advertising and search businesses were coupled. If Google Canada ceased operations in BC, then the judge's logic chain would no longer exist. This would also result in no sites in BC being findable from Google. This seems a fair outcome. The judge has the right to choose the rules for the game, but Google should have the choice to play or not.

If Google is willing to do this, then I bet the good folks in BC would consider the fair and reasonable consequence of their judge's actions and decide that this path might need adjusting.

The judge seemed fairly cautious in arriving at the the decision for jurisdiction. Perhaps Google could discuss with the judge to see if this course of action would be a satisfactory way to satisfy the court's request in this case.

IDGI

[Anonymous Coward]

There are those little thinks called "meta" keywords that can be used in web pages. One of them is called "robots" and its values are meant to tell the search engines what they can do with the web site, if they are allowed to do anything at all. There is also an "X-Robots-Tag" HTTP header that does the same thing.

The way I see it, Google doesn't have anything to do here, or shouldn't have, unless 1) the developers who built the stupid website are incompetent, 2) the marketing department wanted the site to be indexed, 3) the management at the complaining company are incompetent, too, because it didn't occur to them that they should specifically mention that the site is supposed to be invisible to the search engines when they decided to have the website built, or 4) even more incompetence when they decided to bring that to court without having asked the IT/software development dudes if it made sense. Clearly, it doesn't make any sense to me.

What is this about, anyway

[phorm]

I browsed through the court docket. I see the case is from "equustek solutions", but I fail to see what should be removed, and why. This mostly centers around "why we think we should have jurisdiction for a judgement" but not on what the basis of the block/judgement is.

Is this somebody removing a third-party? Not indexing their own site (that's easy, robots.txt)?

Re:What is this about, anyway

[AnOnyxMouseCoward]

Quote from the article:

The case involves a company that claims that another company used its trade secrets to create a competing product along with "bait and switch" tactics to trick users into purchasing their product. The defendant company had been the target of several court orders demanding that it stop selling the copied product on their website.

Seems to be about illegal copying of a product and generally a scammy website, nothing to do with freedom of speech/rights to be forgotten or anything like that. Chances are the website/company would be pulled down by any US court as well.

Re:What is this about, anyway

[phorm]

I'm still confused as to why they're going to Google rather than the website's registrar/hosting-provider and having it taken down.
No website, no Google results.

Re:What is this about, anyway

[david_thornley]

Alternately, we have a company committing illegal infringement of something by Canadian law, and selling products. You'd think Canada could either shut down their operations (if they're doing any of this in Canada) or have Customs confiscate all imports of those things. Granted, there's plenty of ways to get by customs regulations, but they aren't going to appeal to the average person.

In that case, they could do any advertising they liked in Canada, since they couldn't sell to people in Canada anyway.

Or else what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was under the impression that the global index was more or less under American jurisdiction. It is available in Canada because that's how the Internet works, but if Canada want their own, sanitised, index, located in Canada, so the courts can poke it, I'm sure Google could oblige (they have experience with their business in China). I can't see Canada kicking Google out because they didn't censor the world outside Canada's jurisdiction.

For reference, see FATCA

[Anonymous Coward]

It is hilarious to see all the Google fanboys all rushing out to defend Google and decry this as the judge overreaching jurisdiction.

Newsflash! If a company wish to do business in a country, the company has to obey local laws, and that often means that the even other parts of the same company that is located in a different country ALSO have to observe those laws.

If you think this is anything new, just look at how many non-US companies need to help the US Govt to track US citizens' money thanks to FATCA.

Can any of those companies just ignore FATCA? Sure, if they are prepared to never do business with any US companies ever again.

If Google wish, they could simply withdraw all assets from Canada, never do business with any Canadian companies or individuals, and then give the judge the finger.

Funniest Line in the Order

[Zalbik]

From the court order:

[53] Google submits that its advertising services are completely separate from its search services

Seriously?!?

I guess telling bald-faced lies in court doesn't fall under the category of "do no evil".

 

I don't think that word means what you think

[Anonymous Coward]

This is much more than an index removal request for some petty privacy issue, this above case involves a company who in good faith licensed a third party to sell its products. The third party then did a bait and switch with its knock off product labeled as the licencors. After many court cases and successful judgments the third party was forced out of direct marketing, but, it still markets indirectly through virtual online companies. So this case which includes tests for jurisdiction and applicability is to remove that last piece of market deception.

Decentralized, distributed search.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's clear that we need some sort of decentralized, distributed web search technology. Is there anything budding right now? Seems like it will be a tough nut to crack but it's something that's essential for the freedom of the web in the future.

They've tried everything else.. see details here

[CKW]

Some nice detailed info over here: http://www.equustek.info/

> In July 2012 Mr. Justice Punnett ordered that the world wide assets of Morgan Jack and Datalink be frozen. The order prohibits Datalink from carrying on business because it prohibits the sale of any inventory.
> ...
> The defendants have effectively disappeared. They have refused to provide any information about where they operate of where they manufacture the GW1000. ... Further, the company appears to be a virtual one.
> ...
> However, Datalink and Morgan Jack continue to sell their products in violation of these and other court orders.

I presume that this website is the seized website of the guy whom the BC court has ordered "all worldwide assets be seized". It looks like the BC court has tried everything underneath the sun to deal with this issue prior to going the google route. But the fact that the other guy has "gone underground" and is likely selling products from foreign jurisdictions ... I think the plaintiff and the court going the google route is totally fair and justified in this case.

If it wasn't for google and the internet, this guy, wherever he is, wouldn't be able to carry on his illegal fraudulent business.

Fix it with external links

[xfade551]

I don't have time to do it myself, but with the information provided in the court case (without possessing this "Schedule A" that I presume is sealed by the court), simply that the defendants are "Morgan Jack, Datalink 4 and Datalink 7", I think a motivated Slashdotter could effectively rebuild and repost the URL list before Google (maybe) de-lists them.

The trend continues

[argStyopa]

We knew that simple open policies would never stand in the face of governments who seem to have a vested interest in being invasive, provincial, and self-absorbed.

What I see here is a significant growth in the value of offshore, internationally-neutral server farms.

That, or Google could 'accidentally' remove all Canadian government link results from its data bases for a couple of months....just to see how they like a proprietary internet up there.

Precisely

[Anonymous Coward]

We think that the social problem can't be fixed. If the information is out there, true or not, uncritical people will use it to unjustly harm the innocent. So, since we can't force people to smarten-up, we will instead get rid of the information that they would incorrectly process.

Of course, it won't work. The Internet will still see censorship as damage and route around it.

Re: Precisely

[Anonymous Coward]

The internet won't see anything and won't route anything. It's not a sentient being. Stop repeating senseless ramblings from the mid-90s, they were stupid them and they're stupid now. Grow up.

hell, just unplug Canada, then

[swschrad]

be just like Egypt, Iran, Syria, China.....

He who controls the past controls the future.

[Anonymous Coward]

No doubt the Tea Party will want a similar decision so they can erase every right-wing crime from American history.

I can see it now

[Anonymous Coward]

Judge, I'm sorry but I can't do that. google.ca is an independent business from google.com which controls the master server repository. Now we can remove the site from the servers in google.ca, but the client will need to file a separate lawsuit with google.com which is a US based entity. Of course a successful lawsuit there won't remove the data from google.co.uk; yet another lawsuit will need to be filed in that jurisdiction.

Bad actors

[orgelspieler]

I'll probably get modded down for this, but it looks like this is a case of a judge stretching the law as far as possible to try to enforce an order against some really crappy people. If the plaintiff is correct (AFAIK they are), then the defendants absolutely deserve to get struck from Google's search results. Hell, if they're really bait-and-switching customers, you'd think Google would be pleased as punch to give these guys the finger.

Look, it's nice to talk in absolute terms about freedom of speech, sovereignty, judicial activism, or what have you. But this is part of an ongoing trial, and the judge is trying to do what's fair while the underlying trade secret case plays through. I wouldn't want to be in her position. If the plaintiff goes under because all the Google results for their equipment point to these other asshats, then the judge will be blamed for not doing enough.

If one of my engineers started up a company in Canada using my technology, I would love for a judge to be able to enjoin Google to remove their search results. This is a feature, not a bug.

"rights"

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should your "right to erase the past" infringe on my right to be informed? Screw that.

Does that "right" to be informed apply to every bit of knowledge? Do you have a right to know the length of my penis?

IMHO the "right" to be informed is limited to one's government, and to one's safety. If the person who wants to be forgotten does not apply to either of the scenarios, then you don't have the "right" to go chasing after them for information.

Re:"rights"

[TangoMargarine]

Does that "right" to be informed apply to every bit of knowledge? Do you have a right to know the length of my penis?

God, what is it with all you reductio ad absurdum people on these topic lately?

It was already public and I don't see any particular reason why it should be hidden from the rest of the world. TPTB are only too happy to start out small and get us used to blocked shit before slowly ramping it up until we no longer have the ability to know what's going on in the world. It'll happen many, many times more quickly if we let any old country start blocking parts of the global Internet.

Re:"rights"

[kwbauer]

If the information was posted in a public forum and was accurate, then, yes we do. We may not have a real need to know nor would we particularly care to know it, but we would have the right from that point forward to know. That is the meaning of public.

hmm

[superwiz]

would be nice if a lawyer could comment if a branch of canadian government has standing in dictating policy of foreign corporations. does google.jp, for example, really have to comply with canadian court orders?

TFS, of course.

[Garfong]

Keep in mind the Supreme Court of BC is a trial court (despite the high sounding name). This could still be overturned on appeal.

Re:Slander

[Anonymous Coward]

There was no slander in the "right to be forgotten" case. A Spaniard's home went into foreclosure during the 20th century, but the news report was still visible on the Web today. He complained that a foreclosure hurt his reputation to employers, etc.

I agree that it's still a social problem.

Re:Slander

[TangoMargarine]

I never said anything about slander.

He should have taken it up with the newspaper; no laws should have been necessary.

Re:Slander

[TangoMargarine]

Oh. Gah. I've gotten in so many arguments about this I've lost track of which one I'm on. Yes, I did mention slander, although I meant more "people saying mean things about me!" than the legal concept, which differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction (in the U.K. IIRC "the truth is not a defense").

I would sympathize with this guy somewhat.

Close offices and tell them to FO

[Anonymous Coward]

Google should just close all Canadian offices, shutdown google.ca and tell them to FO. They don't have any data centers there anyway, so no loss, and no more paying taxes on their offices. If Canada removes access to google.com they can have fun with the backlash.

Why is this Google's responsibility?

[SoftwareArtist]

Google is just an index to information that's on the web. If you object to something that's on the web, go after the person who put it there and demand they remove it. I could totally understand that. But instead of demanding it be removed, they're demanding that an unrelated party stop telling anyone, anywhere in the world, that it exists. That makes no sense to me.

The trade secrets are disclosed

[tlambert]

The trade secrets are disclosed, and once disclosed, they are only protected in terms of monetary damages vs. the disclosing party arising from loss of business. Anyone else, however, may use these trade secrets as they see fit.

If the Canadian company wanted broader intellectual property protection than that, it needed to file a patent, with the concomitant reduction in the term of protection. This was a very clear statement on the use and limits of trade secrets which arose as a finding of fact in the USL v. BSDI and USL v. UCB case.

Obvious way to comply...

[tlambert]

A Canadian court has jurisdiction over businesses in Canada and can enforce its rulings by fining them or stopping them from operating. Google can certainly refuse to comply, but they may have to stop doing business in Canada, and the Canadian court could block them.

I think the Canadian court is wrong, but don't make the mistake of thinking that these kinds of laws and rulings have no teeth. I also think that such rulings hurt the country issuing more than anybody else.

The obvious way to comply, of course, would be to block all Canadian eCommerce sites from Google search results, so that the situation never arises for them again in the future. Otherwise, they are going to have to create a "Canadian Judicial Censorship Division" to deal with these sorts of requests.

Google is for meatbags

[Anonymous Coward]

I use DuckDuckGo and Yandex for about two years, never ads, never shaped searches, right on point, no spying bs, no propaganda.

Google doesn't care about its ads or services to public, they are paid big money by govts to spy on meatbags who besides McDonalds and TV know no better.

I used google crapware for a decade and I'm so glad I finally made the switch!

Anyone still using any mainstream bs deserves to be taken advantage off.

keep security

[annasue758]

It should not be too difficult to remove prohibited websites from the results going to a particular jurisdiction, regardless of which Google version is used. I realize this is not 100% blockage, but since the websites themselves cannot be removed, nothing will be 100%. In our home, internet safety should always be a big problem,someone choose to install software like Aobo Filter to block unwanted sites.

Overreach as a bug, not a feature

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like this judge fully understood the ramifications of stating that one nation's court could ban a company based in another country from displaying information in any country.

Whats next? LAN parties in international waters to exchange verboten information?