In A.B. v. Google LLC, the Quebec Court of Appeal delivered one of the most significant Canadian rulings to date on platform liability for online defamation. The case arose from Google’s refusal, over many years, to de-index search results linking to a webpage containing serious and admittedly false allegations about the plaintiff.
The central issue was whether a search engine that merely indexes third-party content can incur liability under Quebec civil law. The Court answered yes. It held that once Google was put on notice that the content was clearly defamatory, its continued indexing of the link constituted a civil fault, departing from the conduct of a reasonable intermediary in similar circumstances.
In doing so, the Court distinguished the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Crookes v. Newton, which addressed hyperlinking in the common law context. The Court emphasized that Quebec’s civil law framework focuses on fault and reasonableness, not strict publication rules, and that intermediaries may incur liability where they knowingly facilitate access to unlawful content.
On damages, the Court significantly reshaped the trial judgment. It reduced general damages but imposed $1.5 million in punitive damages, underscoring the need for deterrence where a sophisticated actor knowingly permits ongoing reputational harm.
The decision signals a clear shift: in Canada, at least in Quebec, digital intermediaries cannot assume neutrality will shield them from liability once they are aware of defamatory content.