Canadian tech giant Shopify paid a six-figure sum to Kenneth Law, the Ontario man who coaxed vulnerable people around the world to end their lives using the toxic salt and suffocation equipment he sold on the e-commerce platform.
Prosecutors highlighted the Ottawa-based company’s involvement in Law’s online businesses in an agreed statement of facts read in a Newmarket, Ont., court last week.
At the hearing, Law pleaded guilty to aiding 14 suicides in the province between 2021 and 2023, and admitted responsibility for 79 other deaths in the U.K. Authorities elsewhere have linked him to several further deaths, including in Quebec, the U.S. and New Zealand.
The 60-year-old former hotel cook used the alias “Greenberg” on a suicide forum to direct users to his own websites. The court heard Law sold lethal products knowing buyers intended to use the items to end their lives, and in some cases asked them to destroy evidence.
Assistant Deputy Crown attorney Cindy Nadler told the court Shopify transferred Law $148,595 between January 2020 and May 2023 for sales on his websites. During the same period, U.S.-based payment service provider PayPal sent Law an additional $148,386 Cdn.
Shopify previously distanced itself from Law’s multiple online storefronts, saying it “takes concerns around the goods and services made available by merchants on our platform very seriously.”
“Once we were notified about a potential violation of our Acceptable Use Policy, we immediately reviewed and took action to terminate all stores associated with Kenneth Law,” a Shopify spokesperson told CBC in April 2023.
The company did not say when it was notified of the policy violation, or by whom.
Shopify did not respond Monday when asked if it proactively monitors whether products sold on its platform violate its policies.
PayPal also did not respond to a request for comment.
In some instances, Law partially masked the real reason users would buy his products. On his website, Imtime Cuisine, Law sold a chemical that he publicly marketed as a meat-curing salt.
On other pages also hosted by Shopify, Law’s language was more straightforward.
In a screenshot shown in court Law described one of his products as an “exit mask.” In another screenshot, Law shared an email from the executor of a “former client’s estate,” who plainly said the buyer had died by suicide.
“Platforms don’t want to get into the business of deciding what’s right and what’s wrong,” University of Ottawa law professor Jennifer Quaid said in an interview.
She says Canadian laws don’t specifically hold online platforms criminally liable for items sold by third parties.
“I think that, unfortunately, the way the law sits right now, an entity like Shopify can say, ‘We didn’t know about it, [but] as soon as we found out about it, of course, we removed it,’ Quaid told CBC News.
Poison seller Kenneth Law pleads guilty to abetting 14 suicides
The way online platforms enabled Law’s crimes has for years angered David Parfett, whose 22-year-old son Tom died in a London-area hotel.
“There’s still not enough understanding about the harms that can be attributed to internet platforms,” he said in a recent interview with CBC News.
“We seem to accept that anybody of any age can be in their own home and access internet platforms that may not be illegal — they’re not selling guns, they are not promoting terrorist material — but they’re certainly harmful.”
After Tom’s death, David set out to track the source of the poison his son had ingested. He raised his concerns with Times of London journalist James Beal, whose investigation into Law’s products was published days before the seller’s May 2023 arrest at his Mississauga, Ont., home.
In a phone call played in court on Friday, Law told Beal his products had been used in the deaths of “many, many, many, many” people.
“We’re not advanced enough as a civilization to accept death openly,” Law told the reporter, who was posing as a potential buyer. “I hope I’m just being a little bit more enlightened.”
Deaths from Law’s products didn’t end with his arrest. Ontario prosecutors revealed the wave of suicides continued until this year.
A 44-year-old British man was found dead at his home on Jan. 4. He had received a welfare check from police in 2023 after his name had appeared on a list of Law’s clients, but told them he had disposed of the chemical.
The Ontario court is expected to hear victim impact statements in September, before Law is sentenced at a later date.
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