It's ok to do no evil, internationally.
/sarcasm on:
We can trust Google, can't we?
Haven't we had enough cheap knockoffs like Linux
They finally got rid of that awful page, http://google.com/linux
Canada's Supreme Court says America's Hat has authority over Google results worldwide – at least in cases when someone's copyright has been stomped on. The Great White North's top legal bench, ruling in a copyright infringement dustup today, has ordered the California ads giant to remove from search results links to websites …
So,presumably all Google need to do is go to some other country and get another court to rule that Google must present these search results internationally and all will be ok.
How do you get to be a judge but still be stupid enough to think your authority extends outside your little piece of dirt?
How do you get to be a judge but still be stupid enough to think your authority extends outside your little piece of dirt?
Ah, a reference to the USA?
US Wire Fraud act, and how it relates to international communications?
The USA's self declared jurisdiction over all sites globally that have Web addresses not ending in a country code (.com, .net, .org), no matter which country the servers are actually in?
The USA's protectionist view on legitimate online gambling services operated by foreign companies and it's pursuit and jailing of the businessmen involved in running them?
Is that the kind of extra-territoriality you were referring to?
People seem to think that the internet is sort of immune to national law, because it's global. And that's basically true. Unless you can get cooperation from other nations, there's always somewhere to hide a server and operate from.
However when you're as big as Google, that can easily stop being true. Google might be doing something the courts don't like in a third country. And mostly Google will get away with saying, that has nothing to do with you. But if Google have significant assets in a country, then that country's courts can go after Google there, to force them to do stuff elsewhere.
Something that's unlikely to be an effective tactic for say Vietnam or Tuvalu, who aren't that important to Google, but the EU, US and Canada are worth enough money to the bottom line that they can exercise some power over Google outside their borders. I seem to remember from a few years ago that Google's UK turnover was about £6 billion for example, which ought to mean the UK government and courts could make them jump if they wanted to enough.
The court has said, if it infringes other laws, they will reconsider the scope, such as freedom of speech.
However, I don't see freedom of speech being an issue in selling counterfeit products. This is something that the police cross-nationality cooperate on anyway.
The only "hope" Google has, is that selling counterfeit goods is not illegal somewhere and to get that court to rescind the order. Either way, it doesn't look good for Google.
If they don't react, they will be accused of censorship, which is here not the case. If they do react, they will be accused of aiding and abetting counterfeiters - which could possibly be argued already, as they take advertising for counterfeit and illegal products (whether with foreknowledge or not).
At some point the transnational companies are just going to have to challenge all the authorities together to find a workable common sense solution.
My feeling is it would be a wonderful gesture (how many fingers?) for Google to say - okay, now searches for horse products will result in displaying only "Sorry, Canada says no".
That will give people a starting point for discussion. I could not predict where the discussions would end up, or when.
You are assuming that the company name and trademarks are registered in all countries around the world.
In theory, if a company name is not protected by an international trademark, it could be used by another company in a country that does not recognize the mark,
In this case, Google preventing other trading bodies outside Canada from using the perfectly legitimate in their own country company name would be adversely affecting that other party.
International trademarks and copyrights are a real minefield when the Internet is Global.
Does the WTO register trademarks worldwide?
Enforcement is easy enough. Fine Google. Or if Google takes its corporate presence outside of Canada, pass a law banning Canadian companies from using their advertising services and fine them.
The ad boycott that started in Europe caused Google to lose cash. That's when they started paying attention. It became immoral to advertise on Google, something advertisers don't like, so they withdrew their accounts.
Imagine if it also became illegal?
The world's legal systems haven't really even begun to catch up with the implications of dominant global online services. In the meantime Google especially (and a few others) are making a ton of what could be described as dodgy money. The Europeans are more active at working out whether what they're doing is actually legal and openly competitive, and increasingly they're finding against Google.
Now Google is a wealthy company and should be able to anticipate some of these rulings. They know they're the dominant player, and consequently it is inevitable that some of their website features will attract attention. Now they have to explain to their shareholders why their American style business strategy was the best one to use globally. It wasn't, it's costing shareholders money, and it looks like it's going to get worse.
The question is, what does Google do? Remember that Google provide search to us mere mortals in order to show us adverts, paid for by companies. Most of that ad spending comes from honking great international companies, who also don't like fake products.
This is an area where because there's no single government, there's unlikely to be any single law. So Goolge will do what it can to make as much money as it can, and accept as little legal oversight as it can get away with. However if it takes the piss too much out of its real customers (the global advertisers who pay it something like $100 billion a year) then it might find the bottom line suffers.
Here's the rub. Us world dominated companies are making the laws to suit themselves or avoiding them wholesale. Canada's ruling is another wake up call for world government. Eventually laws will need to be world wide just as companies are world wide. We live on the same dirt in the vastness of space.
American groups like the MPAA etc have been claiming extra-territorial control for decades. Remember when the Pirate Bay used to laugh with glee at takedown notices from US lawyers?
With respect to this case, I'd be asking, but can't bother to find out, if there isn't some treaty provision to support this decision.
Indeed.
Like google, thepiratebay is a search engine.
Google provides hyperlinks, thepiratebay provides magnetlinks: both are just pointers to pirated content, not the pirated content itself (which is not hosted on the search engine).
If thepiratebay must obey "international law" then so does google!
What? Just because they are rich they should be above the law?
Fuck google.
What are you talking about "animal care products"? Equustek does high end electronics:
"Since 1988 Equustek has been specializing in the manufacture and design of gateways, bridges, and custom protocol conversion communication products that will allow you complete system integration. They allow industrial automation equipment the ability to exchange data over popular industrial networks." Where do you get animal care products from THAT???
I'm sure that if Boeing found out that some villain had ripped off all their aircraft designs and was selling identical versions of the stolen Boeing aircraft in direct competition with Boeing, Boeing would have NO PROBLEM asking Google to remove the links for the villains' sites, especially if Boeing had already obtained legal injunctions against the villain.
Or how about if Jaguar found out that some villain had stolen all their designs and research and was selling perfect copies of their latest cars at a lower price because they avoided paying for the development, design and research? Wouldn't removing the search responses from the worlds largest search engine that point to the villain's websites be a just and reasonable move?
That's all that Equustek has done here: These villains are criminals and they need to be brought to justice. This is just a part of the process.
Looks like somebody joined just to plug their company's point of view! Welcome, JohnnyS777!
That Title box above the comment area is for putting a relevant title to your post, not for repeating your handle.
Your arguments about Boeing and Jaguar are speculative and without merit, but to answer them anyway, I'd expect Boeing or Jaguar to pursue the case in all relevant jurisdictions, not to presume a single nation can dictate global activity with impunity.
The question at hand is whether a local judge has jurisdiction beyond their nation's sovereign borders. Do you believe that to be the case?
> What are you talking about "animal care products"? Equustek does high end electronics
Hmmm, OK. Fixed. We're investigating how this happened.
Edit: A company name mix up (there's an Equustock that does animal care products. The name was corrected during editing but not the product type, oops. It was quickly fixed.)
C.
"Everybody makes mistakes, it's how they're handled afterwards.."
I know - imagine if some TV news network ran a story without a "breaking news, needs clarification"-type of warning, but then withdraws it. Some journos even leave over the incident.
You'd have to be a real idiot to trump on about the entire organisation being a failure because of one mistake that was quickly corrected
I welcome this ruling, because discussion about it will start discussion about extraterritoriality. USA arrogates its laws in many fields and jurisdictions, including inside Canada. The discussion might not come to anything because they pwn nukes and all your data. But oh well.