back to article Search results suddenly missing from Google? Well, BLAME CANADA!

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 …

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  1. john2020

    DuckDuckGo?

    I gave up on everything google some time ago.

    Like I gave up on microsoft in 2007 when ubuntu was demonstrated to me.

    It's OK to move on guys.

  2. thondwe

    How to find and stop counterfeit goods

    Presume the authorities use Google?????

  3. Duncan Macdonald
    Mushroom

    No results for Equustek

    What will happen to Equustek if Google complies with this order by not returning ANY results for a query that includes the word EQUUSTEK ?

    This will probably kill Equustek as they would lose so much business.

    1. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

      Re: No results for Equustek

      I think Google would soon find it doesn't pay to play hardball. If they piss off too many companies and their respective governments they may find they are facing fines or even having access to their services blocked and that will only hurt themselves.

      We are at a time where global corporations are having to figure out how they handle disparate jurisdictions and their laws. "We'll do as we please" risks being cut off from markets they need, and "bow to everyone on everything" is a race to the bottom.

      As a global community we are going to have to figure out how things should be, what a right and reasonable compromise will be.

    2. DavCrav

      Re: No results for Equustek

      "What will happen to Equustek if Google complies with this order by not returning ANY results for a query that includes the word EQUUSTEK ?"

      Back in court I guess? The thing is that when you are a monopoly you don't get to do things like that.

      1. earl grey
        Mushroom

        Re: No results for Equustek

        Google could easily return zero results on a search for "bleep" and claim they have no way to differentiate between legit and illegit references.

        Nice little business you had there; too bad nobody can find it any more. Let them use BING!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Hockey Stick effect redux

    Economics 101.

    The Canadian Supreme Court and Google have now redefined the Hockey Stick effect so beloved of Sales, Marketing, Private Equity and Venture Capitalists globally. Bad Google, Bad.

  5. ecofeco Silver badge
    Alert

    Little known fun fact

    Product counterfeiting utterly DWARFS the illegal drug trade and has lesser penalties.

    Is it any wonder it's so attractive?

    And now a question I have yet to see satisfactorily answered: in this now world wide digital age, how does one effectively stop IP theft?

    A serious question as I also have IP I'd like to not have stolen.

  6. CanadaGrandpaChris

    Canadian World Wide Web

    Hi I'm Canadian. Can't we just get along and be nice. Why do we need local laws for these www companies anyway? Can't we just have one government on this piece of dirt we all live on? Hell we are blowing holes in it, putting plastic all over it, thinning out the ionosphere, burning the air, killing the fish, frogs and bees ... it all logic gone?

    If www courts could be organized so www companies could make money nicely it would be good. Right?

  7. NanoMeter

    Censorship on Google

    Let all countries ask Google to censor this and that in every other country including their own and there will be nothing left to find on Google.

  8. hellwig

    Do people know what a Search Engine does?

    Google's search engine does one thing, show you what's on the internet (interspersed with Google's ads). If you don't like something you see on the internet, you have to go after whomever posted that information. I don't like that Google is being forced to be the arbiter of the internet (will Bing show me these results? probably), and then other jurisdictions like the EU then PUNISH Google for being the de-facto arbiter of the internet.

    Google didn't put this crap on the internet. Imagine suing Google because their streetview shows your neighbors crappy yard and you think it's bringing down property values. Google isn't at fault, it's your neighbor, but for some reason, it's easier to sue Google these days than deal with the problem.

    I'm surprised the Trump administration hasn't sued Google to remove search result pertaining to global climate change.

  9. GX5000

    Sorry

    Not Sorry - Just mad the regressive left is still trying to ruin things for everyone.

  10. Irving Lypshytz
    FAIL

    Embarrassed by the SCOC's lack of technical understanding ...

    ---------------- 8< ---------------------

    Wednesday’s ruling involved Equustek Solutions Inc., a Vancouver-based manufacturer of networking devices that allow complex industrial equipment made by one manufacturer to communicate with the equipment of another, a kind of inter-linking technology.

    In 2011 it got into a messy dispute when its distributor, Datalink Technologies Gateways Inc., headed by Morgan Jack, began to re-label one of the products and passed it off as its own. Equustek claims Datalink then acquired some of its confidential technology and began to manufacture copycat products. Sued by Equustek, Datalink first denied the accusations, then fled the province, and continued to carry on business, selling products all over the world from an unknown location.

    The allegations have not been proven in court , but several court orders were issued against Datalink to stop selling Equustek inventory until the allegations could be tested.

    ------------- 8< ---------------

    Sure, DataLink are bad guys but it is outrageous that while " ...The allegations have not been proven in court ... " the Supreme Court of Canada rules on this case in the first place.

    Further, as a Canadian, I am embarrassed that the SCOC has so little technical acumen that they think this ruling is in any way enforceable.

    1. JohnnyS777

      Re: Embarrassed by the SCOC's lack of technical understanding ...

      As another Canadian, I'm also a bit embarrassed about this but I think there's a couple of points you missed that change the complexion of this issue.

      First, the SCOC is not supposed to consider the widespread results of their decisions: They are not lawmakers and not allowed to make laws they like. What they CAN do is make decisions that become law because they are precedents and those become common law. But the decisions are supposed to be made on the very specific facts around a specific case and nothing else.

      In this specific case, they only looked at the egregious behaviour of the "bad guys" and the existence of the court orders. The fact this ruling opens up a big can of worms on the world stage is something they should not have considered, and indeed they did not make that mistake.

      As for the "technical acumen" the SCOC displayed, I think you're incorrect and the SCOC was pretty smart. All they ruled was that Google must remove any of the villains' links from search results. There's no requirement to pull down the websites or anything that is outside of Google's purview. This is *technically* very easy for Google to do, and they already do this for other issues (such as terrorism websites, etc.) So, *technically* what they ruled is easily enforceable.

      As for the *legal* enforceability of this ruling outside of Canada, that is a whole different story. But it's pretty clear this has been a long time coming: Applying regional or national laws to the Internet was always going to be mostly unworkable. However, the following are increasing rapidly: Legal and regulatory problems on the Internet involving e-commerce, privacy problems, cybercrime and cyberwarfare. The need to deal with these problems is also increasing and IMHO it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. There are no easy solutions.

  11. J.G.Harston Silver badge

    Hold on, so they're saying that if I search for "knock-off CDs", then a search engine, a SEARCH engine, should not give results that match what I SEARCHED for?

  12. arkhangelsk

    This is a criminally stupid decision

    The judges' decision is parochial and willfully fails to foresee the probable consequences of their reckless acts. Now that a Western court has decided that they can rule on search results on a global website, how long would it before the likes of China and Russia's Supreme Courts issuing rulings for choice pieces of information to be removed because they are "subversive", "extremist" or otherwise. Don't they realize that China is still citing Schenck v United States (1919) when defending their infamous "Incitement of subversion of State power?"

    They didn't even do a balancing exercise, so in essence the only criteria required are someone being supposedly hurt and Google can do it. This ought be easy... And it is the Supreme Court so no one can get it out of the system. A stupid, no-name company simply is not worth it.

  13. Ptol

    Company moral hazard....

    The ruling is straight forward. Company 'A' that has operations in Canada is told that they must not facilitate activity that is illegal and also detrimental to another Canadian company.

    Why should Company 'A' be allowed to continue profiting from this illegal criminal activity anywhere in the world?

    Company 'A' should take a long look at itself and make its decision on whether it accepts that the court in Canada is right, it shouldn't facilitate this illegal behaviour, and comply with the court ruling, or if it decides that it will not comply with the rule of law in Canada, to withdraw its operations from this unreasonable legal jurisdiction.

    1. arkhangelsk

      Re: Company moral hazard....

      >The ruling is straight forward. Company 'A' that has operations in Canada is told that they must not facilitate activity that is illegal and also detrimental to another Canadian company.

      Actually, it isn't on two levels. For one thing, Google's action in itself is not illegal, nor are they specially doing something to this tiny company. They are doing their regular legal business of providing search services to any interested parties, and it is already questionable legally as it is to impose penalties for neutral actions that do not break the law, unless he actively desires the facilitation of the illegal and unworthy outcome.

      Further, Googe's actions, broadly speaking, involve expression, which is beyond "neutral" and actually a right protected by constitution and treaty after many painful historical experiences as to the real consequences when it is compromised. The court willfully faked blindness so it did not have to weigh that. In doing so, it condones further abuses. I cannot believe the judges were so stupid as to be unaware of the danger, especially since it was pointed out to them.

      And I just love that moronic court judgment. If you have been up on international news, you might notice China just "released" the nearly dead Liu Xiaobo in the name of medical treatment. I can easily see how that crummy judgment can be borrowed by a Chinese court in the future to convict yet more people for "subversion of the State". After all, to pick just one, Liu Xiaobo would not be "inconvenienced in any *material* (because the world is only material, implies the Canadian judge) way" and would not "incur any significant expense" in choosing to not publish his critical articles and Charter 08. Thus, in the face of it causing a certain amount of "irreparable" harm to the Chinese State, Liu Xiaobo's actions cannot be defended as free speech and he thus is correctly guilty of "subversion of the State".

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