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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCanadian Court Orders Google To Remove Websites From its Worldwide Index
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/7159/125/In the aftermath of the European Court of Justice "right to be forgotten" decision, many asked whether a similar ruling could arise in Canada. While a privacy-related ruling has yet to hit Canada, last week the Supreme Court of British Columbia relied in part on the decision in issuing an unprecedented order requiring Google to remove websites from its global index. The ruling in Equustek Solutions Inc. v. Jack 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. Note that this differs from the European right to be forgotten ruling, which is limited to Europe.
The implications are enormous since if a Canadian court has the power to limit access to information for the globe, presumably other courts would as well. While the court does not grapple with this possibility, what happens if a Russian court orders Google to remove gay and lesbian sites from its database? Or if Iran orders it remove Israeli sites from the database? The possibilities are endless since local rules of freedom of expression often differ from country to country. Yet the B.C. court adopts the view that it can issue an order with global effect.
... 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.
... While there is much to be said for asserting jurisdiction over Google - if it does business in the jurisdiction, the law should apply - attempts to extend blocking orders to a global audience has very troubling implications that could lead to a run on court orders that target the company's global search results.
randome
(34,845 posts)Alternatives to Google will spring up more frequently if this is allowed to stand. Who would ever have thought that 'Big Brother' would arrive courtesy of multiple court decisions instead of some sort of coup d'etat?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)They already control massive amounts of email, even getting many public universities to stop using their own mailservers and instead use gmail. They're mapping out every address, every street they can, taking pictures. They've got bots constantly crawling around the web to make sure they can cache every bit of data they can get their hands on. They've got facial recognition software working to map out who is who in every picture posted. They're getting into the video business, to capture as much video as possible through 'google glasses'.
The government could slash the NSA budget by 3/4 and simply get a secret court to force google to share everything with them - assuming they haven't already.
randome
(34,845 posts)But much of what they offer, a good number of people want, including street-level views. But for a supposedly Democratic society like Canada to basically control what we can and cannot see is much more worrisome, IMO.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]
gvstn
(2,805 posts)All the other search engines seem to parrot back Google results. Does any other search engine actually have thousands and thousands of computers mapping out websites and indexing their contents independently? I haven't found one.
Does anyone know if Bing (the largest competitor) actually starts from scratch to gather their results?
NYC Liberal
(20,138 posts)If you are accused of something and someone reports on it, the accusation happened -- even if the claim was later proven false.