Introduction
Yet again a Court of law has made an order against Google, requiring it to deindex search results in a particular case. This example does not deal with the so-called “right to be forgotten” but with issues surrounding efforts by one company to infringe the intellectual property rights of another. But Google’s involvement in this case as not as a party to the action. They were not involved. No wrongdoing by them was alleged. All they did was provide index links via their automated processes. These links were to the infringers. An injunction was sought to compel de-indexing not just in the country where the case was heard but world wide.
Equustek v Jack
Equustek v Jack came before the British Columbia Supreme Court in 2014. The circumstances of the case were these.
Equustek manufactured electronic networking devices for industrial use. A company named Datalink created a competing product. Equustek claimed that one of its former employees conspired with Datalink, and the competing product used Equustek’s trade secrets and trademarks.
Equustek commenced proceedings against Datalink and a number of individual defendants. The Datalink defendants did not play any part in the litigation and their defences were struck out but they continued to sell products from a number of websites.
Pending trial the Supreme Court made a number of interlocutory orders against the defendants including an order prohibiting the defendants from dealing with Equustek’s intellectual property. Even the issue of a criminal arrest warrant against one of the defendants did not stop the sale of the disputed products on the web from undisclosed locations.
So far the case is procedurally unremarkable. But what happened next is quite extraordinary. Equustek turned to Google and asked it to stop indexing the defendant’s websites worldwide. Google voluntarily removed 345 URLs from search results on Google.ca. But the problem remained. Almost all the infringing material was still available online. So Equustek took the matter a step further.
Remember, Google was not a party to the original suit. They had not been involved in the allegations of intellectual property infringement . Google’s response to Equustek’s approach was a co-operative one. They did not have to comply with Equustek’s request.
Equustek sought an order from the Court restraining Google from displaying any part of the websites with which it was concerned on any search results worldwide. The order was in the nature of an interlocutory injunction. The grounds for the application were that Google’s search engine facilitated the defendants’ ongoing breach of court orders.
Google argued that the court did not have jurisdiction over Google or should decline jurisdiction, In any event it should not issue the requested injunction. The Court observed that the application raised novel questions about the Court’s authority to make such an order against a global internet service provider.
The court held that it had jurisdiction over Google because Google, through its search engine and advertising business, carried on business in British Columbia. This in itself is not remarkable. It is consistent with the theory of connection with the forum jurisdiction and the concept of the grounding of activities in the forum state that gives rise to a Court’s jurisdictional competence. Cases abound arising from e-commerce and Internet based business activities.
The court considered that Google’s search engine websites were not passive information sites, but rather were interactive and displayed targeted advertisements. The court noted that this rationale might give every state in the world jurisdiction over Google’s search services, but noted that was a consequence of a multinational doing business on a global scale rather than from a flaw in the territorial competence analysis.
Again this is a reality of jurisdictional theory. In the Australian defamation case of Dow Jones v Gutnick it was observed that a cause of action might lie in every country where publication of the defamatory article had taken place. Mr Gutnick undertook to commence only in Australia because that is where his reputation lay and needed to be vindicated.
The court also refused to decline jurisdiction over Google, because Google failed to establish that another jurisdiction (California) was a more appropriate forum and the court could effectively enforce its order against Google outside Canada. This is what is called a forum conveniens argument – it will arise in the context not of whether or not a court has jurisdiction but where jurisdiction may lie in two states (in this case British Columbia, Canada and California, United States of America) which court should properly hear the case.
The Court found that it had authority to grant an injunction with extra-territorial effect against a non-party resident in a foreign jurisdiction if it is just or convenient to do so.
The judge observed that new circumstances require adaptation of existing remedies – an aspect of the reality of e-commerce with its potential for abuse. This would be especially so if there was to be any credibility and integrity of Court orders.
The court then considered the test for ordering an injunction against a third party. The standard test was modified.
(1) a good arguable case or fair question to be tried (which relates to the plaintiff’s claim against defendant); and
(2) a balancing of the interests (irreparable harm and convenience) of the plaintiff and the non-party to whom the injunction would apply.
The court identified a number of relevant considerations, including
- whether the third party is somehow involved in the defendant’s wrongful acts;
- whether the order against the third party is the only practicable means to obtain the relief sought;
- whether the third party can be indemnified for the costs to which it will be exposed by the order;
- whether the interests of justice favour the granting of the order; and
- the degree to which the interests of persons other than the applicant and the non-party could be affected.
The court granted the injunction against Google requiring Google to block the defendants’ websites (identified in the court order) from Google’s search engine results worldwide finding that Google was unwittingly facilitating the defendants’ ongoing breaches of court orders, and there was no other practical way to stop the defendants.
Google appealed to the British Columbia Court of Appeal who upheld the order issued at first instance.
Equustek v Google
The Court of Appeal observed that it is unusual for courts to grant remedies against persons who are not parties to an action. The reasons for this are obvious – most civil claims are concerned with the vindication of a right, and the remedial focus will be on that right. Further, notions of justice demand that procedural protections be afforded to a person against whom a remedy is sought. The usual method of providing such protections is to require the claimant to bring an action against the respondent, giving the respondent the rights of a party.
However, this does not mean that the Courts are powerless to issue orders against non-parties. What is known as a Norwich Pharmcal order was cited as an example. There are, in fact, many types of orders that are routinely made against non-parties – subpoenas to witnesses, summonses for jury duty and garnishing orders are common examples. Many of these orders have a statutory basis or are purely procedural, but others derive from the inherent powers of the court or are more substantive in nature.
The Appeal Court observed that Canadian courts have jurisdiction to grant injunctions in cases where there is a justiciable right, even if the court is not, itself, the forum where the right will be determined. Canadian courts have also long recognized that injunctions aimed at maintaining order need not be directed solely to the parties to the litigation.
Google argued that the Court should not grant an injunction with extraterritorial effect. It submitted
As a matter of law, the court is not competent to regulate the activities of non-residents in foreign jurisdictions. This competence-limiting rule is dictated both by judicial pragmatism and considerations of comity. The pragmatic consideration is that the court should not make an order that it cannot enforce. The comity consideration is that the court refrains from purporting to direct the activities of persons in other jurisdictions and expects courts in other jurisdictions to reciprocate.
The Court did not accept that the case law establishes the broad proposition that the court is not competent to regulate the activities of non-residents in foreign jurisdictions.
The Court noted that the case exhibited a sufficient real and substantial connection to British Columbia to be properly within the jurisdiction of the Province’s courts.
From a comity perspective, the question must be whether, in taking jurisdiction over the matter, British Columbia courts have failed to pay due respect to the right of other courts or nations. The only comity concern that was articulated in this case was the concern that the order made by the trial judge could interfere with freedom of expression in other countries. For that reason, there had to be considerable caution in making orders that might place limits on expression in another country. The Court stated that where there is a realistic possibility that an order with extraterritorial effect may offend another state’s core values, the order should not be made.
In considering the issue of freedom of expression the Court noted that there was no realistic assertion that the judge’s order would offend the sensibilities of any other nation.
It was not suggested that the order prohibiting the defendants from advertising wares that violate the intellectual property rights of the plaintiffs offended the core values of any nation. The Court noted that the order made against Google is a very limited ancillary order designed to ensure that the plaintiffs’ core rights are respected.
The Court also noted that there were a number of cases where orders had been made with international implications. Cases such as APC v. Auchan Telecom, 11/60013, Judgment (28 November 2013) (Tribunal de Grand Instance de Paris); McKeogh v. Doe (Irish High Court, case no. 20121254P); Mosley v. Google, 11/07970, Judgment (6 November 2013) (Tribunal de Grand Instance de Paris); Max Mosley v. Google (see “Case Law, Hamburg District Court: Max Mosley v. Google Inc. online: Inform’s Blog Moserly v Crossley – Hamburg) and ECJ Google Spain SL, Google Inc. v. Agencia Española de Protecciób de Datos, Mario Costeja González, C-131/12 [2014], CURIA are well known to Internet lawyers.
Some of the cases involving extraterritorial implications have been controversial, such as La Ligue contre le racisme et l’antisémitisme c. La Société YAHOO!Inc., Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris (May 22, 2000 and November 20, 2000), Court File No. 00/05308 and YAHOO! INC. v. La Ligue contre le racisme et l’antisémitisme, 169 F.Supp. 2d 1181 (N. Dist. Cal., 2001) rev’d 379 F.3d 1120 (9th Cir., 2004) and 433 F.3d 1199 (9th Cir. en banc, 2006)).
This extensive case law does indicates that courts in other countries do not see extraterritorial orders as being unnecessarily intrusive or contrary to the interests of comity.
Commentary
Google appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada and leave to appeal has been granted. Thus, there is one more act to this drama to be played out.
One issue that will need to be resolved is whether the order that was made can be even be granted against a third party not involved in any wrongful activity. If so, the test to obtain such an order will need to be determined, as well as its geographic and temporal scope.
What about the issue of access to justice? In many areas of law, courts have expressed concern that effective remedies should not be limited to individuals or companies with deep pockets. The type of order granted against Google is certainly an effective additional remedy from a plaintiff’s perspective. But are only large corporates expected to be the sole parties in cases such as these simply because they are large corporates with a high profile. Only Google seems to be a party in this case – no other search engine features.
Furthermore what are the boundaries of a Canadian court’s territorial jurisdiction. May a Canadian court order a search engine company in California to prevent users in other countries from viewing entire websites? It is also expected that Google will raise constitutional issues, specifically whether blocking search results limits access to information or freedom of expression on the Internet.
But there is more to the case than this. It involves the ability to locate Internet based information that is facilitated by search engines. This case has the same impact on the Internet as Google Spain – its consequence is de-indexing of information.
The decision is unremarkable for its application of conflict of laws theory. But having said that, the issue of extraterritorialty is a complex one, and because other jurisdictions and Courts have made extraterritorial orders that may or may not be enforceable does not mean that such an order is correct of justified in law. The anti-Nazi organisations LICRA and UEJEF found this out when Yahoo, having had extraterritorial orders made against it in France came to the US Courts seeking a declaration that they were unenforceable. Would Google be on less firm ground if it adopts a similar course of action against Equustek – assuming that a US Court has jurisdiction?
Throttling the Web
The development of the World Wide Web was, in the vision of Tim Berners-Lee, to assist in making information available and, creating a method of accessing stored information and sharing it. Yet it had already become clear, even pre-Web, that locating information was a problem and the solution lay in developing search engines of means of locating a specific piece or pieces of information. Search engines such as Gopher provided a form of a solution in the pre-graphical interface, pre-Web environment, and there were a number of search engines such as Altavista, Lycos, Find-What, GoTo, Excite, Infoseek, RankDex, WebCrawler Yahoo, Hotbot, Inktomi and AskJeeves that provided assistance in locating elusive content. However, the entry of Google into the marketplace, and the development of innovative search algorithms meant that Google became the default source for locating information.
What must be remembered is that Google is a search and indexing engine. It does not store the source information, other than in cached form. Using some advanced mathematics, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed a method for measuring the links across websites by ranking a website more highly when other sites linked to it. Putting it very simply, the algorithm measured the popularity of a webpage. Utilising the hypertext link of Berners-Lee, Google locates content and enables a user to access it.
As a lawyer\technologist, I see Equustek v Google in the same way as I saw Google Spain – as a clog on progress that may slow the development and promise of information systems that depend upon a reliable search facility to locate information on the greatest central source of information that the world has ever known. The propositions that underlie Google Spain and Equustek and the application of law in this area amounts to a real and significant collision in the Digital Paradigm. Perhaps it is time for the Courts to understand that an automated indexing system that is completely content neutral and involves no human input into the way that it identifies and indexes should be seen as simply an intermediary and no more. Google is able to monetise its search engine but to suggest that its search engine is not a passive information system, but rather is interactive and displays targeted advertisements in and of itself is, in my respectful view, insufficient justification to require a de-indexing of search results.
The IT Countrey Justice 