Yesterday I wrote about privacy consultations regarding the online tracking of consumers. Privacy advocates want to ensure that consumer choice and privacy are respected. Similarly, pressure is put on ISP’s and search engines to limit the amount of information they retain about their customers, and the length of time they retain it. All laudable objectives.
On [...]
Update (1/14/2010): Verisign’s iDefense Labs traced the cyber-attacks on Google to a “single foreign entity consisting either of agents of the Chinese state or proxies thereof”. In response to Google’s statement and claims of hacking, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said, “China’s internet is open… China administers the internet according to the law. We have an [...]
The Canadian government has convinced a German ISP to shut down two environmental parody sites that were developed by the "Yes Men" and garnered considerable attention during the Copenhagen climate conference. The ISP complied with the request without seeking a court order first and in the process blocked an additional 4,500 sites hosted on the same IP block.
A New Brunswick court has ordered a plaintiff in a disability insurance claim to obtain “a history of her computer account use” from her ISP and “request” her ISP to generate a record accounting for her FaceBook use.
My article Cybersieves is now available in the Duke Law Journal. The team at Duke did a superb job editing and improving the piece, and I’m grateful. The abstract is:
This Article offers a process-based method to assess Internet censorship that is compatible with different value sets about what content should be blocked. Whereas China’s Internet [...]
Multiple reports this morning indicate that the government plans to introduce a new bill requiring ISPs to report child pornography websites to designated authorities. More on the bill when it is released, but the government is apparently treating this as part of the lawful access package. Further, cybertip.ca already provides a tipline service and the largest ISPs already block child pornography images identified on the Cybertip.ca list.
The net neutrality fight is on, as FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s proposal for new rules moved on to a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. Now, the two sides are digging in: AT&T, telcos, and unions on one side; Google and content providers on the other.
I tend to favor protecting end-to-end in the Internet context, but I’m [...]
Consultants Mark Goldberg and Giganomics released a new report this week on the state of Canada's broadband infrastructure. Commissioned by Bell Canada, Bell Aliant, Cogeco, Rogers, SaskTel, Shaw, and Telus, it states as its purpose to "confirm or disprove whether Canada faces a real problem in terms of broadband infrastructure." Given the sources, there is never much doubt that it will conclude that Canada is doing well and that studies that reach a different conclusion must surely be flawed. Indeed, the report claims that "we are a broadband leader, scoring in the top ten or better for most international broadband rankings or measures, despite facing greater geographic challenges than most others."
Yet reading the report, you are hard pressed to find anything resembling a leader. For example, on broadband speed (download only, the report does not address upload speed), it points to reports from ITIF (10th), Akamai (14th), and OECD (25th). On price per Mbps, it cites reports from the OECD (which it argues is flawed, 28th) and ITIF (21st). On broader e-readiness, it points to reports from LECG/NSN (7th), the Economist/IBM (9th), and the ITU (19th). There may be varying definitions of leadership, but I'm pretty sure none would qualify Canada as a leader based on these reports.
When it isn't attacking the methodology of reports where Canada performs poorly, the report tries to rationalize Canada's middling performance. Geography and population density is a favoured explanation (never mind that nearly 50 percent of the Canadian population lives in the ten biggest cities yet fibre to the home is still a rarity here) as are attempts to explain away the leadership in Japan and South Korea (government support ultimately paid for by the public). In what will be news to many communities without broadband, the report claims that there is universal availability if satellite is factored into the mix (those claiming that satellite is an effective substitute for fibre, DSL, or cable should be required to use it). Missing from the report is much discussion on the pervasive use of bit-caps and throttling in Canada.
Ultimately, I'm not convinced the report will have much of an impact. Telling Canadian consumers how great their throttled, bit-capped, relatively slow broadband service is is not likely to gain much traction. Meanwhile, Industry Minister Tony Clement has set a target of being the number one digital country in the world and is unlikely to be impressed with leadership claims based on data that at best does little more than suggest that Canada isn't awful when it comes to broadband infrastructure.
New FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski threw down the network neutrality gauntlet in a speech today [PDF] [HTML] at the Brookings Institution, announcing his intention to start a formal process that would result in adoption of binding regulations. [There is good news and blog coverage from AP, Wired, and Washington Post.] His proposal would turn [...]
The government has just posted the audio from the Toronto copyright roundtable held in late August. The discussion started off with a bang with comments from Bell Canada. Bell had a lot of good things to say including support for the positions of Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright. The discussion turned quickly to the role of ISPs in addressing allegations of infringement on their networks. Bell receives upwards of 15,000 notices every month under the notice-and-notice system (primarily from the movie, gaming, and software industry), a volume that raises concerns about the associated costs. Bell also provided a strong rejection of a three-strikes and you're out system describing those proposals as "outrageous."
The company then moved into the area of potential lawsuits with some surprising remarks:
"A role we don’t hear much about though is the role of content owners to defend in Canada their own statutory rights. Bell and a few other Canadian ISPs several years ago spent time and resources in the courts helping to develop the legal blueprint that content owners would need if and when they decided to legally pursue their rights in a way that respects the privacy and judicial rights of Canadians. We’re still waiting. No one is crazy about suing consumers because it is not popular. But what sort of message does it send to Canadians about the legality of the activity when an entire industry says we won’t be suing Canadians for sharing our content without our permission."
While one can understand Bell's frustration at the demands to "do more" on the copyright file, pushing the industry to file lawsuits against its own customers surely is not the right approach. The recording industry has stated that it does not want to pursue the lawsuit strategy, yet Canada's largest ISP thinks that not suing sends the wrong message to Canadians? Years of experience shows that neither locks nor lawsuits provide any real benefit to the industry or the artists and the last thing ISPs should be promoting is lawsuits againt their own customers.
In case you needed another reason, the comments serve as a reminder why Canadians must speak for themselves during this copyright consultation. There are just five days left and submitting to the process takes nothing more than an email - make sure yours is filed today.