Google turns to U.S. courts over Equustek decision

Alphabet Inc.’s Google is challenging the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) to order its search engine to delist specific results in the United States, asking a U.S. court to declare that a recent SCC decision cannot be enforced in that country. “The Canadian Order purports to place the Canadian court in the position of supervising the law enforcement activities of a foreign sovereign nation (the United States) against the United States’ own citizens on American soil,” Google said in a July 24 filing with the San Jose Division of the United States District Court. Google is arguing that “no-one country should purport to control the global internet.” Last month, the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling and upheld a worldwide ban on search results of a company that Equustek Solutions Inc. said infringed on its products. Now Google is arguing that decision violates the U.S. constitution and its Communications Decency Act, and that the “Canadian order is repugnant” to rights established by those two pieces of legislation. The order “violates principles of international comity, particularly since the Canadian plaintiffs never established any violation of their rights under U.S. law,” Google argued in the document. “It is a foundational principle of jurisprudence that each country is the master of its own territory. Foreign courts therefore ordinarily refrain from issuing worldwide injunctions because they only have jurisdiction to prescribe conduct that, wholly or in substantial part, takes place within or affects their own territories,” it added. Specifically, Google argued that enforcing the Canadian decision violates the first amendment of the U.S. constitution, which stipulates that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,” given that search results are considered protected speech under that amendment. It also cited the Communications Decency Act, arguing it “provides clear legal immunity to providers of interactive computer services for content on their services created by others.” That legislation is pre-empted only by U.S. federal intellectual property law, and the Equustek case is based on Canadian law, Google argued. In a blog post Tuesday, University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist said that Google challenging that decision is exactly what critics of the June decision feared, “as the prospect of conflicting rulings, protracted litigation, and legal uncertainty becomes a reality.” Geist added that by upholding the global takedown without considering the implications it could have, the Supreme Court “effectively invited other courts to issue conflicting decisions without guidance on how to best resolve the issue.” — With reporting Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca and editing by Charelle Evelyn at cevelyn@thewirereport.ca

Google turns to U.S. courts over Equustek decision

Broadcast | July 25, 2017

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Google turns to U.S. courts over Equustek decision

Broadcast | July 25, 2017

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