A provincial court ruling in the west coast province of British Columbia has sparked interest in legal circles around the world.
The question involves the ability of a court in one country to exert authority across its borders in relation to the borderless internet.
On June 13, a BC supreme court judge issued a temporary injunction against Google ordering them to block access to specific sites anywhere in the world.
Google’s lawyers argued that Canadian courts had no jurisdiction over the US-based company.
The court injunction is a result of a legal battle involving a BC-based company Equustek, which makes and sells complex industrial networking interface devices, and several former associates. The company alleges the group stole trade secrets to produce their own competing products which they sell through a number of websites in defiance of previous court orders.
Google has complied to block such sites from its Canadian search engine, Google.ca, but the ruling says most of the group’s sales are outside Canada so foreign search engines could still access the sites, and even within Canada the group simply kept creating new websites.
BC Supreme Court Justice Lauri Ann Fenlon ruled that Google sold adverts in the province and uses its search engine to target BC residents and so falls within the court’s jurisdiction. She also said Google may be an innocent bystander in the original court battle, but its global network is facilitating the breakaway group’s breach of previous court rulings.
The Court must adapt to the reality of e-commerce with its potential for abuse by those who would take the property of others and sell it through the borderless electronic web of the internet,” she writes.
Some legal critics say the court’s global injunction goes too far, speculating that a country’s courts could order Google to block sites it disagrees with such as an Islamic country ordering a global ban on Isreali sites.
The lawyer for Equustek argues that this is not a case of free speech, but rather of intellectual property rights.
Nevertheless, many courts in Canada and elswhere have been extending their rights. Canadian courts for example have issued rulings against people or entities outside the country such as injunctions demanding the freezing of assets. Earlier this year the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Google-and other search engines- must respect the “right to be forgotten”, and remove individual citizen’s personal information upon request.
Google had argued that the BC Court could not enforce a worldwide order, and also that it is an intrusion into it’s business as a lawful search engine. Google has said it intends to appeal the BC Supreme Court injunction.
For reasons beyond our control, and for an undetermined period of time, our comment section is now closed. However, our social networks remain open to your contributions.