Supreme Court Of Canada Upholds Global Search Engine De-Indexing Decision: Five Implications For Internet Intermediaries

On June 27, 2017, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld an injunction that requires Google to remove an entire website from its global search index. The Equustek v. Google decision (Equustek) establishes that Canadian courts can make orders with extraterritorial, even global, effect against search engines and other innocent internet intermediaries, even those that do not have a physical presence in Canada, if that is the only effective means of preventing harm to other parties. The decision has important implications for the internet intermediaries that provide crucial elements of the internet's business and technical infrastructure, as well as for owners of intellectual property, which are addressed in a separate Update.