Oh, hai! Remember me? I used to write about very important internet law developments on the internet. I still do it on occasion, but now I do it (/checks date) 5 months after they happen apparently. I also promised myself I would write at least 3 posts in 2021. It’s a low bar. I am running out of time. Let’s get to it!
Don’t worry, I don’t understand the headline either. But I’ll explain. There was a HUGE development in privacy / internet circles [/checks calendar] about 3 weeks ago, that will possibly have some HUGE implications for a lot of things. Am I being vague? Seems like it! OK, let’s figure this out.
Sure, everyone is talking about Facebook this month (and last month, and probably many months before that, who knows, I barely pay attention to this stuff), but did you know Google is having its own issues in April, but in the courts? Let me lexplain what’s happened.
In July of 2014, I wrote a post that was entitled This hugely important Google case will be going on for a while…. Well it’s more than 3 years later, and it’s still going on. I am psychic!
My two loyal readers may remember the case of Equustek Solutions Inc. v. Google Inc. OK, even I admit I had trouble remembering it, since I wrote about it almost a year ago and a year is forever in internet time. But it sounded vaguely familiar, so I Googled myself (ha!). And what I found was that I was quite prescient, for the title of that post was “This hugely important Google case will be going on for a while…” Well I got that right! I wrote in that post that “I still think the Court of Appeal will overturn the order in the end”. Well about 10 days ago the BC Court of Appeal decision came down and I got that… less right.
Within 14 days of the date of this judgment, Google Inc. is to cease indexing or referencing in search results on its internet search engines the websites contained in Schedule A…
– Supreme Court of British Columbia
I would not blame you if you thought that order above was from the Google Right to be Forgotten case. It is not. It is from Canada. And it will be seriously precedent-setting. Well, if the appeals don’t gut it first. We’re a long way from this being over, but we’ve had two important decisions so far, the most recent one last week, so I guess I better chronicle them so when we end up in the Supreme Court of Canada in three years, I can just refer back to this post because I’m lazy. Let’s dive in.
Sometimes we forget things. Sometimes, we’d like to forget things. You know, like that time I you had a few too many and got naked on the bar and everyone had their iPhones pointed at me you and well, I’ve said too much already. I’d You’d like to forget that incident, but the internet never forgets. And Google never forgets. But thanks to a ruling from a couple of weeks ago that can only be described as “landmark” from the top court in the EU, the Court of Justice, Google kind of has to. Let’s dive in.
It’s a weekday, which means Google must be violating your privacy (weekend privacy violations belong to Facebook). This one is all official-like even, as the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) has just released a big fat honking report saying as much. Let’s see what nefarious get rich quick schemes have gotten Google into trouble today!
Almost a month ago, Google announced some changes to their Terms of Service, including something that caused quite the hubbub, shared endorsements. You’ve got just a few days left to take action to avoid seeing your face in Google Ads. Well, unless you want to, you narcissist. Let’s take a good look at the new Terms of Service. What other fun stuff did Google put in?
Today is March 1st, meaning that Google’s new Privacy Policy has gone into effect. I already wrote about it, but it’s still worth celebrating! Or complaining about, if you’re France, or Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, or, well, a whole bunch of other people probably.
I am currently hammering out a piece on the new policy for The Gazette’s Legal Matters. I’ll update this post with a link to that when it gets published, assuming they don’t reject it for my fucking salty language.
UPDATE – And here is The Gazette article. Fuck it’s not too bad. Enjoy!
UPDATE #2 – Check out what’s the most poular story on The Gazette right now:
Just don’t tell the Mob I’m more popular than them.
Do you use Google products? Of course you do. You’re probably using one right now. If you do, you got an email last week from Google saying that as of March 1st, you will be covered by their brand-spanking new Privacy Policy. Since there is nothing really exciting in Canadian internet law this week, I thought I’d take some time to read the thing so you don’t have to. As I write privacy policies for a living, I am confident I will be able to handle this task with all the usual straightforward hard hitting legal analysis you’ve come to expect from me. Or I could really pile on the snark. Join me after the jump to find out which one!
Pretty slow news week in the world of internet law in Canada. Apparently we can’t have a big CRTC decision every week. Tragic, really. So let’s have a little fun. We’ve got some internet news that’s not law-related out of Google, as yesterday they announced that they are killing off seven Google products due to suckiness. Let’s take a look at the products you won’t miss after the jump.
I am a lawyer specializing in internet law working out of Montreal, though sometimes I do it in front of the U.S. Capitol. That should tell you what you need to know about internet law in Canada. I also warp young legal minds at the Faculty of Law at McGill.
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