The claimants applied for a “Newzbin 2” blocking order against websites which made available and facilitated the use of the so called Popcorn Time applications (used for BitTorrent-based, illegal streaming of copyrighted content). The order was granted, with the websites’ owners found jointly liable for the infringements and the Popcorn Time application being characterised as having no legitimate purpose.
Google was found to be using tracking cookies in order to secretly obtain data about its users’ online activity. A group of the latter sought to obtain corresponding damages for distress suffered, on the basis of s. 13 of the Data Protection Act 1998. At first instance, the claimants have been granted the permission for the trial to be conducted in England. On appeal, after stating that misuse of private information is a valid tort for the purpose of serving out of jurisdiction and that the claim could be for non-pecuniary loss, the court upheld the lower instance judgement.
Section 69(1) of the Act provides that “it is an offence to be in possession of any item that contains advice or guidance about abusing children sexually.” Schedule 3 of the same legislative instrument specifies that this offence is to cover the domestic providers of information society services; unless they fall within one of the safe harbours reflecting the E-Commerce Directive 2000/31 (mere conduit, caching, hosting). Non-domestic providers can also be charged, but only if a specific public policy requires it.
The claimant brought a claim against Google under art. 10 of the Data Protection Act 1998 in order to oblige the search engine to disable access to pictures infringing on the former’s privacy. Google sought to strike out the claim, on the basis that the order applied for would be incompatible with arts. 13 and 15 of the E-Commerce Directive. The court, after noting that Google is able to block access to individual child pornography images, allowed the claim to go to trial.
Section 56 of this Act repeals sections 17 and 18 of the Digital Economy Act 2010 (which warranted the introduction of specific website blocking injunctions, see below).
A Scottish case, in which the claiming guest house owners were refused a court order which would oblige TripAdvisor - a US-based company – to disclose the personal data of users who wrote allegedly defamatory reviews about the claimant’s establishment. The base of the refusal was that the Scottish Administration of Justice (Scotland) Act 1972 did not cover the identification requests aimed at entities located outside of the country.