Supreme Court Rules Linking to Defamatory Material is Fine

Ruling finds that hyperlinks ought to be considered as footnotes of the internet.

The Supreme Court of Canada has decided that a website linking to defamatory content does not make that website guilty of defamation. The country's top bench agreed unanimously with the B.C. Supreme Court's decision that links ought to be treated similarly to footnotes in a book or essay, and should not be considered an endorsement of the content therein. The ruling puts an end to Wayne Crookes' plight to seek damages from Jon Newton, who posted links on his website to U.S. sites that had defamed Crookes, a former campaign manager for the Green Party. Crookes has also launched libel suits against MySpace, Wikipedia, and Google for similar such linking. Newton's lawyers have argued that holding the linker responsible for the hyperlink's content would cast a chill across the internet in Canada. Others have observed that such a ban on linking would mean Canadian internet companies wouldn't be able to compete with countries with more relaxed standards of defamation.