International Comity And The Internet Era

This past June the Supreme Court of Canada released a decision involving the application of a worldwide injunction, Equustek v Google. The decision resulted from a dispute that Equustek was having with a rogue competitor that was stealing their material and selling it under their own name. While legal proceedings against the competitor were on-going, Equustek turned to Google with the argument that it was Google's indexing of the competitor that enabled it to sell the stolen material on-line. Indexing, referring to the way in which Google presents listed material results after a Google search, was responsible for the competitor appearing in searches for Equustek's products. Equustek argued that if Google stopped listing the competitor in such searches, the competitor would be thwarted in its sales of the stolen materials.