Judge Rules Canada Can't Make Google Delete Search Results in U.S.
November 03 2017 - 6:13PM
Dow Jones News
By Jacob Gershman
A federal judge ruled Canada's courts can't compel Google to
censor particular search results inside the U.S.
The decision marks a significant win for the search giant in its
effort to prevent any one country from dictating what can be posted
or searched online around the world.
The order, handed down late Thursday by a U.S. district judge in
San Jose, Calif., appears to be the first time a U.S. court has
weighed in on the thorny and widening issue of who gets to police
the internet.
It is a debate that has also flared across the Atlantic. The
European Union's top court is weighing whether French regulators
can force Google to globally censor search results as part of the
bloc's "right to be forgotten" privacy rules.
The legal case in California was sparked by a ruling this summer
by Canada's highest court, which ordered Google to strip its search
engine of results associated with a distributor of networking
devices that was accused in Canada of stealing trade secrets.
Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., was drawn into the business
dispute after a British Columbia court ordered the internet company
to globally block search results linking to sites associated with
Datalink Technologies Gateways Inc., which Canadian courts earlier
sought to shut down.
Google objected to scrubbing results in the U.S. and took the
issue to the Canada Supreme Court, which affirmed the global order.
Stating that "the internet has no borders," Canada's high court
said the delisting order would be too porous unless applied
extraterritorially.
Google then filed suit in America, asking a federal judge to
declare Canada's order unconstitutional and unenforceable in the
U.S.
Google said Canada's order violated the First Amendment and
would set a dangerous precedent that could lead to wider online
censorship. Internet freedom advocates, including the organization
that runs Wikipedia, filed briefs supporting Google.
Equustek Solutions Inc., the Canadian company that sought to
shut down Datalink, opposed Google before the Canada Supreme Court,
arguing the case wasn't about censorship but its right to "deal
with illegal conduct on the internet."
Equustek didn't participate in the California litigation and
hasn't attempted to enforce the order in the U.S.
In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Edward J. Davila said the
Canadian order violated a federal law giving internet content
providers strong legal protections against lawsuits over what
internet users post on their sites. The judge didn't address
Google's First Amendment claim.
Spokespersons for Google and Equustek didn't immediately respond
to a request for comment.
Judge Davila's ruling still leaves Canada's order in place and
doesn't preclude Canadians from taking measures on their own to
enforce it.
Google's court fight could have an influence on foreign internet
regulators, said Paul Schiff Berman, a George Washington University
law professor who studies internet law and conflicts among legal
systems.
Mr. Berman said the decision could influence the debate around
internet in other countries. The ruling suggests a country that
tries to impose global rules on internet content won't be able to
enforce those rules in the U.S.
The decision comes as EU's Court of Justice is set to decide
whether to expand the bloc's strict "right to be forgotten" privacy
law.
The law allows any EU resident to ask search engines to remove
links from searches for their own names, if the information is old,
irrelevant or infringes on their privacy.
Google is challenging a 2015 order by France's privacy regulator
requiring it to apply the privacy law not just to searches in
Europe but around the world.
Write to Jacob Gershman at jacob.gershman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 03, 2017 17:58 ET (21:58 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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