2010 May 28

Canadian National Railway Co. v. Google Inc., 2010 ONSC 3121

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice granted a pre-trial injunction against Google requiring the defendant to remove the allegedly defamatory website hosted on Blogspot. After noting that the test to be satisfied in order to obtain a pre-trial injunction against defamation is stringent, the Court considered whether the test “could be impacted by the novel nature and broad impact of the publication of defamatory material on the Internet.” The Court concluded that there was no reason to amend or alter the ordinary test when the publication s on the Internet but held it must be applied in a “careful, considered and appropriate manner.” Google did not oppose this motion. The anonymous John Doe defendants did not respond although they had been served with the motion by email.