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B.C. Supreme Court Grants Injunction against Domain Operation and Transfer
In Nazerali v. Mitchell, 2011 BCSC 1581, the British Columbia Supreme Court issued an interim injunction against the author of an allegedly defamatory website, the hosting company, the domain name registrar (GoDaddy) and Google (for providing a cache of the site) on an ex parte basis.
The articles posted on the website alleged that Altaf Nazerali, a Vancouver-based promoter and investor, was an international criminal kingpin and among other things was involved with arms trading, and had ties to the Italian and Russian mafias and Colombian drug cartel. The Court held that the words involved in the articles were so manifestly defamatory that any jury verdict to the contrary would be considered perverse. The Court also went on to say that the plaintiff’s reputation would indeed suffer irreparable harm that would be impossible to rehabilitate, particularly when the instrument of damage is the worldwide web.
The injunction was unusual because it also prevented moving the domain to another server or transferring the content, and also compelled Google to remove cached versions. This effectively results in shutting down the allegedly offending website, since the court considered it impossible surgically to eliminate just the offending phrases.
For additional information, please visit:
http://canlii.ca/en/bc/bcsc/doc/2011/2011bcsc1581/2011bcsc1581.html