The National Court of Appeals in Civil Matters stated that court actions which aim to suppress information provided through the Internet are under the jurisdiction of the federal courts

Recently, Division J of the National Court of Appeals in Civil Matters confirmed the decision of a lower court and upheld the jurisdiction of federal courts over actions which seek to suppress information which is provided through the Internet (National Court of Appeals on Civil Matters, Division J, "D., V. A. v. Y. d A. S.R.L.", Docket No. 9919/2015, August 2, 2016). 

The facts of the case are as follows. The claimant brought an action against Google Inc. and Yahoo! de Argentina SRL before a civil court and sought the takedown of information provided online as a precautionary measure. In response, Google Inc. questioned the civil tribunal's jurisdiction. The lower court ruled in favor of Google Inc., stating that the federal civil and commercial courts had jurisdiction over the case. The National Court of Appeals in Civil Matters confirmed this decision.

In its ruling, the Court of Appeals held that this stance is in line with the criteria it had adopted in prior decisions, which was later confirmed by the Supreme Court of Justice.

To this effect, it referred to section 36 subsection b) of Law No. 25.326 on Personal Data Protection, which establishes federal jurisdiction over data records which are interconnected to national or international interjurisdictional networks. Furthermore, it mentioned section 44 of the same law, which states that there is federal jurisdiction over records, files, databases or databanks which are interconnected in networks of national or international interjurisdictional reach.

Consequently, the Court of Appeals considered that if the information in question is made available through the Internet, which is an interconnected network, the federal courts will have jurisdiction over the case.

Additionally, the court referenced its own case law on similar matters, where it found that federal civil and commercial courts have jurisdiction in court actions against internet service providers for cease of use of unauthorized images, names or photographs in websites (or for damages caused by such use).

When referring to these cases, the Court of Appeals emphasized that the Internet is a global method of interaction. It considered that federal jurisdiction follows from the extra local nature that this interaction allows.

The decision issued by the Court of Appeals follows the Supreme Court of Justice's case law.

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