Canada’s top court: Google must block results worlwide

The Canadian Supreme Court has ruled that it can force Google to remove search results worldwide. The ruling followed an appeal made by Google against a court ruling in 2015, which ordered Google to remove all its search results linked to a certain company, even outside of Canada’s borders. According to the court, ‘The internet has no borders – its natural habitat is global,’ and ‘the only way to ensure that the interlocutory injunction attained its objective was to have it apply where Google operates – globally.’ The decision has drawn criticism from rights groups, as they claim that the case could set a precedent for infringements on freedom of expression and would be seen to justify ‘censorship requests that could result in perfectly legal and legitimate content disappearing off the web because of a court order in the opposite corner of the globe.’