2007 September 4

Crookes v. Holloway, 2007 BCSC 1325

The British Columbia Supreme Court dismissed this libel action against Yahoo, a foreign defendant with no ties to British Columbia. “Yahoo has no offices in Canada, is not registered to do business in Canada and does not pay Canadian taxes. Yahoo does not do business and has no physical presence or bank accounts in British Columbia. The servers for Yahoo’s internet services … are not located in Canada. The fact Yahoo can be accessed on the internet from a computer in British Columbia is not evidence it is carrying on business in British Columbia.”

The Court, applying Dow Jones Co. Inc. v Gutnick (2002), 194 Aust.L.R. 433 (H.C.) and Barrick Gold Corp. v Blanchard and Co., [2003] O.J. No. 5817 (S.C.), held that the defamation is committed at the time and place when a person downloads the impugned material from the internet.

The plaintiff in this case “neither alleged nor tendered any evidence that any individual in British Columbia has downloaded and read the impugned material posted … on the website.”