• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, November 1, 2017

Google this week asked a federal judge in California to award it a permanent injunction blocking an order obtained in Canada by the tech company Equustek.

Google contends in its new court papers, filed Tuesday, that it is entitled to an injunction on the grounds that Equustek defaulted -- meaning that Equustek didn't submit an official response to Google's argument. Instead, according to Google, Equustek executive Robert Angus said in a letter to the court that the company wasn't going to appear in California to fight the complaint.

The new papers represent the latest development in a battle dating to 2012, when Equustek asked a judge in British Columbia to order Google to remove search results for Datalink Technologies -- which allegedly stole trade secrets from Equustek and engaged in counterfeiting.

The Canadian court issued a worldwide injunction prohibiting Google from displaying search results for Datalink. That order was upheld last month by Canada's Supreme Court.

Google then asked Davila to invalidate the order, arguing that it goes against free speech principles.

A coalition of advocacy groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Center for Democracy & Technology and Public Knowledge, backed Google's request. They argued in a friend-of-the-court brief that the Canadian court's takedown order could set a "dangerous" precedent. "If one foreign court can impose its speech-restrictive rules on the entire Internet -- despite the conflict between its rules and those of a foreign jurisdiction -- the norms of expectations of all Internet users are at risk," the organizations wrote.