<div dir="ltr">What Lillian describes -- defendants being legitimately summoned but not appearing -- also happens here, and leads to default judgments.  You see those sometimes in counterfeiting cases against defendants outside the US, often in China. There's a pattern of plaintiffs trying to get (and getting) orders that purport to bind entities like DNS providers or search engines in those cases - Eric Goldman has covered this well in his blog.<div><br></div><div>What's going on here is different, it seems to involve getting a signed agreement by the "defendant" agreeing to an order. That makes the case move much faster than a default judgment would. It shouldn't be possible to sue a fake defendant, and there are safeguards against it including service of process requirements, so something is going wrong there -- shady behavior by the plaintiffs, errors by the court, or both.</div><div><br></div><div>The orders here aren't against Google. In the US, where intermediaries do not have to remove content for claims like defamation because of CDA 230, many platforms will nonetheless agree to voluntarily remove content if a court has adjudicated it to be defamatory in a case against the actual speaker. The idea is basically "don't make the platforms adjudicate, but if a court has done so we'll respect its conclusions."  Some platforms think this gives too great an opportunity for gamesmanship - including the kind Eugene and Paul illustrate here. Ripoff Report in particular had a longstanding policy that if they received such a court order, they would append it to the allegedly defamatory post so people could see it, but they would not take the post down. </div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Oct 12, 2016 at 7:20 AM, Palazzi, Pablo <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ppalazzi@udesa.edu.ar" target="_blank">ppalazzi@udesa.edu.ar</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Hi Daphne<div>In Argentina you should do the service of procces personally, these cases are a fraud and would justify the judge imposing a pecuaniry sanction on plaintiff and sending the case to the Bar Ethic Committe if there is proof that the lawyer was involved.</div><div><br></div><div>What I do not understand is why Google is taking down this with such decision. Google is not a party to the injunction...?</div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><div>Pablo</div><div><br></div></font></span></div><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">2016-10-12 6:36 GMT-03:00 Jef Ausloos <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jef.ausloos@law.kuleuven.be" target="_blank">jef.ausloos@law.kuleuven.be</a>></span>:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">



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Hi Daphne,
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<div>Fascinating research!</div>
<div>I was wondering though, how this is even possible? To me, it seems like these cases are almost entirely due to negligent/sloppy work by the courts? Maybe I am overseeing something, or I’m being ignorant about the US court system. In Belgium, when
 a person is sued, a bailiff will verify the identity of the defendant and summon that person.</div>
<div>=> Non-existent/fake defendants will quickly be unmasked</div>
<div>=> When the defendant is a 'real person’ (but not the author of the post/comment/…) and agrees with a complaint/takedown, there is nothing much that will prevent a judge from ordering the removal. But still, this scenario seems not very scalable.</div>
<div>=> Realistically, these types of cases in Belgium would be dealt with through a unilateral procedure (where the author/uploader/… cannot be identified). In this case, the judge will have investigate/assess the merit of the claim and the actual
 author will have an opportunity to intervene.</div>
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<div>Happy to hear how other jurisdictions would deal with this!</div>
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Best,</div>
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<div>On 11 Oct 2016, at 20:28, Daphne Keller <<a href="mailto:daphnek@law.stanford.edu" target="_blank">daphnek@law.stanford.edu</a>> wrote:</div>
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<div>Apologies for cross-posting.  This detective work by Eugene V and Paul L is remarkable for people following US takedown practice.  They found 25 court orders adjudicating Internet content defamatory, all seemingly obtained by suing fake defendants
 and entering fake stipulations - the goal being to provide Google with court orders supporting removal of web search results. </div>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/10/10/dozens-of-suspicious-court-cases-with-missing-defendants-aim-at-getting-web-pages-taken-down-or-deindexed/" target="_blank">https://www.washingtonpost.co<wbr>m/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/20<wbr>16/10/10/dozens-of-suspicious-<wbr>court-cases-with-missing-defen<wbr>dants-aim-at-getting-web-pages<wbr>-taken-down-or-deindexed/</a>
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<div>Daphne Keller<br>
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Director, Intermediary Liability<br>
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Center for Internet and Society<br>
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Stanford Law School<br>
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</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div>Daphne Keller<br></div>Director, Intermediary Liability<br></div>Center for Internet and Society<br></div>Stanford Law School<br></div></div>
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