Some part of me wonders what would happen if they were to turn off Google to Canada for a day and list the judge's phone number as the person to complain to.
I've been party to a court session where the defendant tried to pull something like that. Let's just say I would advise against it, 'career limiting move' does not even begin to describe it.
No doubt, but I don't think it would be appropriate to stick the knife in even further. The case was a complete victory and we ended up drafting the settlement agreement one sided. There is nothing to gain by further destroying the reputation of the other side. Live & let live. I'm fairly sure they learned their lesson ;)
I do remember making a very explicit 'note to self': Do not under any circumstances piss off a judge during a court session.
Feel free to ignore that, if you do please do blog about it.
Only if you're in their jurisdiction. And Google isn't a person to jail. And corporations have a way of making these things not attributable to any one person.
However, it would be better to state the argument given by the law professor in the article: "what happens if a Russian court orders Google to remove gay and lesbian sites from its database". Find something that the judge cares about personally, and you'll find a country that opposes it. Google can also complain that it's being targetted - why not Bing? Yahoo? Any other search providers? Does Wikipedia have a page for the company? What about reseller companies, that resell the competitor - not only are they facilitators, they're witting facilitators? What about sites with user reviews? At what point do we draw the moral line about shooting the messenger?
Which nicely illustrates one of the major problems of having granted corporations 'legal person' status: the punishments for various crimes were originally intended to punish natural persons and have never been sufficiently adapted to punish corporations. What's a proper punishment for flagrant contempt of the court by a corporation?
And corporations have a way of making these things not
attributable to any one person.
This looks like an example of @ziobrando's "Bullshit asymmetry principle" in action. You whip out some bullshit (unless I'm really misunderstanding what you are saying) in a one liner with no citations, but to refute it, someone would have to talk about the history of corporations, legal theories around them, compare and contrast with societies that never developed a similar idea (an interesting take on things: http://www.amazon.com/Long-Divergence-Islamic-Held-Middle-eb... ), and so on and so forth. That's a lot more effort than simply spouting some snark.
There's still a corollary in need of succinct definition/labeling: in context of a casual discussion, you make a fair point in a one liner with no citation, then someone criticizes it (in effect) for lacking peer-reviewed encyclopedic depth & thoroughness. (Ex.: "this car does 0 to 60MPH in 10 seconds" "uh, NO, you're not taking relativity into account! and you didn't cite any certified testing labs!" and from social context you feel compelled to elaborate on why your comment was sufficient, while the other loudly labels you a liar, ignores your objections, and marches off to disrupt other sane conversations.)
> the punishments for various crimes were originally intended to punish natural persons and have never been sufficiently adapted to punish corporations
The lawyers made a compelling case that the law allows for the actions taken by the course, so the judge followed it. That's how the court system works.
I imagine Google going dark in Canada would hurt Canada more than it's worth (playing out the fantasy scenario). I don't just mean search, but at this point there'll be plenty of companies that rely on Google Apps, including gmail.
Yes, but the law will generally not bend so readily to blackmail as people think it will.
Companies like Apple, Google, Facebook and other global IT companies are at an advantage here because they can always pack up and move but if they start pissing off the legal system in the larger economies it may very well backfire.
For 'brick and mortar' companies such tricks are a lot harder to pull off. Also, to protect against mutual damage governments can enter into collectives which have a lot more power against multi-nationals than any single country.
If a judge orders you 'x', you can appeal but in the meantime it is usually wise do 'x', unless you've very carefully weighed the risks and any fall-out and you decide to make a stand.
It's quite possible this is a case worth doing that for.
Oh, for sure. I'm just playing out a fantasy scenario. I imagine in the google offices that making Canada dark in response would have been passed as a joke, but no-one would seriously think it. And even if they did think of it seriously, the legal team would stomp them before they could do anything.
I think one inevitable fairly result would be many other national governments observing Google trying to use its market position in order to bully the courts and overpower the rule of law in a country, and swiftly passing legislation ordering Google's break up as a company so that it can never do it again.
Nothing. Google is not Apple or Microsoft. It's not hardware they are selling. There are many positive things but there's a big downside too: A new search engine, is a click away. No one has to sweat about it.
If 5% of the clicks actually like the new search engine, then Google would have lost 5% of it's clients in a day.
(Probably one very angry judge, but I wonder...)