Online stores don't ship electronics to montreal?

[DawnMTL]

The browser does the translation for the company; the company should not be mandated to have their website in every language. You're assuming that I'm fighting for English in Quebec, but it's not that at all. What about someone making a purchase in Spain, or in Italy, or in Israel? Should a U.S.-based company whose business is run in English be forced to have a Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew version of their website too? And in every other language spoken in the world where they ship?

My problem with the original issue is not the language. Not at all. It's that the website itself (or the product) was blocked from users in Quebec. There was no reason for that -- my Chrome browser would have translated the English into French.

ETA: Here's a perfect example. A friend of mine told me about these really cute and funny socks. We both just HAD to have them. We searched online and the only website that had them in stock was a company in Spain. They shipped worldwide but the website was in Spanish (because they're based in Spain). My Chrome browser, though, translated everything and we bought the socks.

[BOORGONG]

Yes well, the law is about businesses that already have a presence as retailers in Quebec. I don't think legislation extends to other business concerns. The point being that there has to be an effort by the company to remain communicative throughout their business operations with the public. Of course the internet is a sort of no man's land for some folks. The reasons invoked by those who don't want to make the effort are moot. There are a lot worse things a government can do to damage my faith in internet freedom, and universality. The following paragraph is taken from a Wikipedia article on censorship of Internet content in the U.S.:

Trading with the Enemy Act[edit]
In March 2008, the New York Times reported that a blacklist published by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), an agency established under the Trading with the Enemy Act 1917 and other federal legislation, included a number of websites, so that U.S. companies are prohibited from doing business with those websites and must freeze their assets. The blacklist has the effect that domain name registrars based in the U.S. must block those websites. According to the New York Times, eNom, a private domain name registrar and Web hosting company operating in the U.S., disables domain names which appear on the blacklist.[24] It describes eNom’s disabling of a European travel agent’s Web sites advertising travel to Cuba, which appeared on the list[25] published by OFAC. According to the report, the U.S. government claimed that eNom was "legally required" to block the websites under U.S. law, even though the websites were not hosted in the U.S., were not targeted at U.S. persons and were legal under foreign law.

[NewMoose]

Well, there we go again! 21 century, but not in Quebec! I can't buy an English version of the laptop. On top of that, they lie.
I got a very polite "no "answer after finishing an order online:

We are sorry to inform you that your order for Lenovo IdeaPad 330S 15.6" Laptop - Platinum Grey (Intel Core i7-8550U/256GB SSD/8GB RAM) - English had to be cancelled due to the item being discontinued.

As the product will not be available again in the future, we are issuing a Globoforce credit note for the relevant amount, which you can use to place a new order.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.


Kind regards,
Globoforce Customer Service Team