Canadian Court to the Entire World: No Links For You!Maira Sutton The case, titled Equustek Solutions Inc. v. Jack, involved a trade secret fight between two Canadian companies. One sued the other for allegedly stealing the designs of some of their products and selling them on their website. The plaintiff claimed that Google facilitated access to this illegitimate online vendor through its search platform. Initially, Google voluntarily took down specific URLs that directed users to those products and ads under the local Google.ca domains, but the Court decided that was not enough. The judge ultimately ruled that Google must delete the entire domain from its search results, including all other local domains such as Google.go.uk and even the main site Google.com. Oddly, the judge in this case seemed unfazed by the wide-ranging implications of this order. Based upon the assumption that users would simply switch to other variants of the Google domain, she decided that for any blockage ruling to be effective, even within Canada, Google must block search results on all of its websites and that any other external impacts are a separate issue. But the court went even further, ordering Googlea company based outside its jurisdiction in Californiato censor the site worldwide. If left unchallenged, this could leading to a slippery slope of ever more countries feeling empowered to mandate global online censorship. If a Turkish court were to find that a certain protest site was illegal, would intermediary services like Google be forced to remove all references of the domain name from its site? Or if Ethiopia mandated the deletion of all sites referring to imprisoned journalist, Eskinder Nega, would online platforms be forced to comply with that order? Those are only a few examples of how such a precedent could dangerously expand. If courts become empowered to demand intermediary platforms remove and take down domains worldwide, that could be the end of online free expression as we know it. And if history has taught us anything, authorities are very good at creatively constructing legitimacy to shut down speech. This case alone is evidence of that: the judge mentioned that she was inspired by the recent EU rulings on the right to be forgotten, and felt that forcing global removals was just a way to keep up with the times. We can imagine how problematic this would be if it were applied to copyright infringement. There is already a history of cases in which government agencies have taken down entire domains over allegations of content piracy. The United States has been especially guilty of this. One of the most glaring cases involve Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), when it took down a Spanish sports streaming site, Rojadirecta. It is alarming that any government agency, anywhere in the world, would have the authority to unilaterally remove an entire website, especially when doing so may violate another countrys strong legal protections for the right to free expression. This kind of forceful takedown of domains is exactly the kind of sweeping censorship that what we fought against in the SOPA and PIPA bills defeated over two years ago. No matter what the charges are, there is no reasonable justification for intermediaries to block an entire website over content that only some of the pages contain. Thankfully, Google has indicated that it intends to appeal the decision to prevent this from becoming a dangerous new precedent. It is as important as ever that intermediaries, such as search engines, Internet service providers, and domain name registrars, be protected as neutral platforms. They are often attractive targets for those who want those services to help them remedy alleged wrongdoing. But dragging intermediaries into court as implicit facilitators of unlawful activity creates a wide range of negative, unintended consequences for the Internet. Just because a party has been wronged does not mean that they are entitled to any and all remedies. Going after intermediaries is an easy shortcut, but one with too many costly ramifications. Thanks to Tamir Israel of CIPPIC.ca for providing excellent analysis in preparing this post. Please visit EFF.org. 