Fresh on the heels of the EU Google Right-to-be-Forgotten privacy decision, a Canadian court has ordered Google to remove links to a virtual company, Datalink Technologies (Datalink), on search results worldwide. Justice Fenlon of the British Columbia Supreme Court (Court) last week made the ruling in Equustek Solutions Inc et al v Jack et al 2014 BCSC 1063, setting precedent on judicial extra-territorial reach over Internet companies operating on a global scale.

Background

Equustek Solutions Inc (Equustek) operates from British Columbia, developing and manufacturing proprietary networking devices. It claims that the defendant, Datalink, has been manufacturing a competitive product using proprietary trade secrets, passing off Equustek products as its own and using bait-and-switch tactics to deliver Datalink products for Equustek orders.

Equustek has been trying to shutter Datalink for several years. However, Datalink is a virtual company and operates from an “ever expanding network of websites through which they advertise and sell their product.” These websites have been the subject of numerous court orders, including a December 2012 order prohibiting the defendants from carrying on business through any website. Apparently the defendants continue to sell the contentious products on their websites in violation of these court orders.

Google is not a party to this action.

After the December 2012 order was issued, Google voluntarily complied with the plaintiff’s request to remove specific websites from its Google.ca search results. However, this process was largely ineffective, leading to a virtual whack-a-mole of site detection and elimination. The plaintiff sought the Court’s assistance in removing all Datalink results. The Court responded by ordering Google to remove Datalink websites from the Canadian search engine, google.ca, as well as from the global engine, google.com, reasoning that this site could also easily be accessed from within the jurisdiction.

Ruling’s Implications

The Court’s decision has many jurisdictional implications, and Google has announced plans to appeal the decision, but had not done so at the time of publication. The EU and Canadian rulings offer further insight into the way Courts may be reconsidering their perceptions of the Google service.

For more information, follow these links: cbc, Huffington Post and Mondaq.

Summary by: Jennifer R Davidson

E-TIPS® ISSUE

14 07 02

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