Canadian Appeals Court Orders Google To Censor Globally

Ruling comes in same week that France demands that Google institute worldwide censorship.

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While most attention has been on the European Union wanting to impose its censorship demands on Google globally, the same thing has been happening in Canada. This week, Google lost an appeal and may have to censor content on sites outside Google Canada.

Here’s the backstory. A Canadian company named Equustek Solutions won a trademark infringement case against another company called Datalink Technologies Gateways. Equustek then wanted Google to remove links to Datalink. Google did so, but only for those using the Google Canada site.

Back to court. Last June, a Canadian judge in British Columbia ordered that Google remove Datalink from its search results. All of them, worldwide. Google appealed; now it has lost that appeal.

The Globe And Mail has more information on the ruling, and there’s even more via Techmeme. Google, cited in the report, hasn’t decided if it will appeal further. I suspect that’s likely. But what’s key about this case is that it’s further along than the situation in France, which just happened today.

In France, Google’s been given 15 days to make Right To Be Forgotten censorship happen globally. If Google fails to do so, it’ll be fined. But Google almost certainly has some appeal time here. The situation in Canada may play out before the situation in Europe is resolved.

Also see our analysis piece, How The Myth Of Google Censorship Was Busted By The EU & Canada.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Danny Sullivan
Contributor
Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and MarTech, and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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