US judge says “global de-indexing order” against Google threatens free speech

Canadian courts can't rule the Internet—at least not outside Canada.

A US federal judge has stopped a ruling from the Canadian Supreme Court from going into effect in the US. The Canadian order would have ordered Google to de-index all pages belonging to a company called Datalink, which was allegedly selling products that violated the IP of Vancouver-based Equustek.

When the order came down earlier this year, Google filed a lawsuit in US federal court seeking to render the Canadian order unenforceable stateside. Google called the Canadian order "repugnant" to the First Amendment, and it pointed out that the Canadian plaintiffs "never established any violation of their rights under US law."

Equustek never showed up to defend itself in the US court case, making a Google victory all but assured.

On Thursday, US District Judge Edward Davila made it official, granting a preliminary injunction that will stop Equustek's hard-won Canadian ruling from being enforced in the US. Davila held (PDF) that the order violated Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which prevents online platforms from being held responsible for content posted by others.

SOURCE