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Canadian Appellate Court Orders Google To Block Website Worldwide

By Lisa Shuchman
August 02, 2015

Almost 20 years ago, John Perry Barlow, the essayist, Grateful Dead lyricist and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) founder, declared that governments had no sovereignty in cyberspace. “Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement and context do not apply to us,” he wrote in his Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, which went viral when published in 1996. “They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.”

The courts in the Canadian province of British Columbia beg to differ. A recent ruling by the Court of Appeal for British Columbia affirmed a lower court decision ordering Google Inc. to block certain websites from its search engine ' not just in British Columbia but worldwide. Equustek Solutions Inc. v. Jack, [2015] B.C.A.C. TBEd. JN.039.

The ruling, the first of its kind in Canada and one with international significance for entertainment industry content owners and users, raises questions about the power that courts can wield over the Internet ' a question that is also being raised in other parts of the world. It challenges notions of free speech, extraterritoriality and an open Internet. And it raises the possibility that intellectual property owners will file more lawsuits in British Columbia as it develops a reputation as a venue willing to exercise its authority beyond its provincial borders.

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