'Emergency' legislation is the UK.

The BBC reports.

In the UK...Emergency powers to ensure police and security services can continue to access phone and internet records are being rushed through Parliament.

Prime Minister David Cameron has secured the backing of all three main parties for the highly unusual move.He said urgent action was needed to protect the public from "criminals and terrorists" after the European Court of Justice struck down existing powers. But civil liberties campaigners have warned it will invade people's privacy. Mr Cameron defended the move in a joint news conference with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, saying it was about maintaining existing capabilities - not introducing new snooping laws. But it will make legally clear the requirements include companies based abroad, whose phone and internet services are used in the UK. A former senior diplomat will also be appointed to work with other nations to speed up the "lawful and justified" transfer of data across borders. ...

ref for more information http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-28237111

Facebook a digital landlord

The BBC reports that Facebook has been described by a court as a digital landlord.

Facebook is fighting a US court order in which it was forced to hand over data belonging to almost 400 people involved in a benefit fraud trial. The social media site said the request was "by far the largest" it had ever received from a government body. Photographs, private messages and other information were supplied to a New York court last year, but the process was only made public by a judge this week. The ruling defined Facebook as a "digital landlord". A judge said this definition meant the company must comply with search warrants. The original case investigated fraudulent claimants of US federal disability benefits, whose Facebook accounts apparently showed that they were in fact healthy. The web giant was ordered to hand over information from the 381 accounts, which the court said contained "evidence of criminality".

The courts continue to define the digital policy in the absence of legislation. The web of court orders relating to data companies such as google and facebook continues to evolve fast.

Oh to be forgotten - courts and policy

From the Economist

Now the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the EU’s highest court, has boosted this cause in a landmark case (see article (http://www.economist.com/news/business/21602239-europeancourt-justice-forces-google-remove-links-some-personal-information-cut) ). A Spanish lawyer, Mario Costeja González, sued Google because its search results linked his name to a newspaper article from 1998 about a now-resolved lawsuit. The court ruled that Google was a “data controller” under the 19-year-old European law on data protection, which gives individuals strong rights over data that others hold on them. It said Google could be required not to display links to information that is “inadequate, irrelevant...or excessive”, given the purpose for which they are processed, and the time elapsed. Individuals will be able to appeal to their national data watchdogs if they are turned down.

And now from British Columbia, Canada comes this case. From the Vancouver Sun 17 June 2014.

In the case of Equustek Solutions Inc. v. Jack, the court granted an interim injunction ordering Google to block websites associated with a company selling products in contravention of court orders. Google is appealing the decision, which was released Friday. The verdict comes not long after a European Court of Justice ruling compelling Google and other search engines to comply with requests by people to remove links to unflattering or objectionable personal data. But the B.C. ruling is even more precedent-setting because it covers the blocking of entire websites, not just links to particular posts. And unlike the European ruling, which includes only Europe, the B.C. decision covers all of Google’s search engine activity around the world. “I don’t know if the court took into account the full potential impact of this when it issued its decision,” said Tamir Israel, a lawyer with the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic. For example, he said the ruling opens the door to the possibility of a country blocking websites from search engine results to quash political dissent online.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Google+court+ruling+reaching+implications+experts/9948340/story.html#ixzz3568c2Sqo