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eLegal Canton 
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Post Frequency: 0.9/day Last Entry: November 20, 2009 at 08:50:54 Recent Entries: 316
By David Canton
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If Middlesex Centre can build a Rec Centre – why can’t London build a Performing Arts Centre?
Posted on November 20, 2009The municipality of Middlesex Centre (which borders the west/north sides of London) will start construction in a few months for a new “Community Wellness and Recreation Centre”. It will feature 2 NHL sized ice pads, a gym, walking track, fitness centre, library, and multipurpose rooms...
Interesting things this week
Posted on November 18, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: Steve just posted about the Kindle coming to Canada ? certainly a noteworthy and overdue event. (I?m going to hold out for something that displays colour.) Some other noteworthy things from the last few days (at least for those of us in the tech/legal/privacy [...
Pervasive connectivity revolution
Posted on November 17, 2009Advances in technology and reduction in costs are moving us towards a day when everything can be connected – including things like appliances, light switches, and even humans. That connectivity will be for both reporting status and for control...
Online rules out of line, critics say
Posted on November 16, 2009For the London Free Press – November 16, 2009 Read this on Canoe BLOGGING: Proposed U.S. guidelines would hold bloggers to ethical standards The U.S. Federal Trade Commission recently proposed new guidelines pertaining to transparency in blogging...
ACTA – I’ve got a bad feeling about this
Posted on November 13, 2009International negotiations continue on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The latest round of talks just ended. It is a proposed treaty among a few countries to help stem the flow of counterfeit goods at borders. Sounds reasonable - but there is a growing concern that the treaty would go far beyond that...
Brand Promise – it’s not a bag of hair
Posted on November 11, 2009That’s my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: Conventional wisdom is that law firm web sites should contain a list of major deals the firm has worked on. I?ve always thought that was wrong ? but didn?t really understand why until this morning...
Data breaches on the increase
Posted on November 09, 2009For the London Free Press – November 9, 2009 Read this on Canoe PRIVACY: Sixty-five incidents were reported in 2008, leaving personal information exposed for all to see Federal Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart recently released her annual report to Parliament on PIPEDA, the private-sector privacy law...
How long is 5 years in blog years?
Posted on November 05, 2009I just realized that I have been writing this blog for just over 5 years. At one of the sessions at yesterday’s Dig conference, a speaker referred to a game that came out in 2004 as if it was from the stone age. Amusing – but illustrates how quickly things are changing...
P2P sharing leaks blueprints on Obama’s Marine One
Posted on November 04, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: A CBS news article says that blueprints of Obama?s helicopter were found on a computer in Tehran. How did it get there? Seems that a defense contractor legitimately had the documents...
DIG London Conference a success #dig09
Posted on November 04, 2009The 2nd annual Digital Interactive Gaming conference was a great success. Harrison Pensa was pleased to be a sponsor of this event, which attracted over 700 people. It featured speakers from many Canadian gaming companies, industry specialists, and post-secondary education...
DVR’s improve TV ratings
Posted on November 03, 2009Digital Video Recorders have been attacked by many in the entertainment industry as being harmful to TV ratings and advertisers. Just like VCR’s were supposed to ruin the video industry. In general, the entertainment industry historically has tended to fear and fight every new technological development...
Controversy over control of ICANN won’t likely die soon
Posted on November 02, 2009For the London Free Press – November 2, 2009 Read this on Canoe INTERNET: ICANN regulates the basic functions of the Internet, most notably, the assignment of domain names ICANN, the body that controls the Internet, is now subject to more worldwide control and less control by Washington...
Tech changes challenge law
Posted on October 29, 2009Technology advances have often challenged existing laws – which can get in the way of progress, or be inadequate to address new issues. A book has just been published (which I have not read) entitled The Laws of Disruption that ”explores, ten years into the Internet revolution, what has happened to social, political, and legal systems that [...
Ontario cell phone ban explained
Posted on October 27, 2009This is a short article that Tim Hogan, a colleague of mine, wrote to explain the new Ontario ban on the use of cell phones while driving. It explains the details, the exceptions, and points out that there is the potential for employer liability if its employees don’t comply.
Brand names face the ire of the Internet
Posted on October 26, 2009For the London Free Press – October 26, 2009 Read this on Canoe CUSTOMER SATISFACTION: It’s a lot harder to manage online when reputations can be made or smeared by campaigns that may or may not be fair An old customer service axiom says a dissatisfied consumer will tell eight other people about their experience...
Google liberation front a welcome attitude on cloud computing
Posted on October 21, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows. The cloud computing, or software as a service model has compelling attributes ? such as low cost, ease of use, and scalability. But the downside is that there are issues around the security, integrity, and longevity of both the data and the software [...
Net neutrality controversial topic
Posted on October 19, 2009For the London Free Press – October 19, 2009 Read this on Canoe INTERNET CONTENT: There’s considerable debate in Canada and the United States about how much control Internet service providers should have over content Net neutrality is a controversial topic that causes concern for Internet activists...
Ringing phones don’t violate performance copyright
Posted on October 15, 2009… at least not in the US. Public performances of musical works are subject to copyright. That leads to things like copyright fees being payable when a hair salon or dentist plays a CD . The EFF reports that a US federal court ruled yesterday that ”when a ringtone plays on a cellular telephone, even [...
Michael Dell on Windows 7, netbooks, …
Posted on October 14, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows. Gigaom has an article about a speech Michael Dell gave yesterday. He had very positive things to say about Windows 7 ? which officially debuts next Thursday the 22nd. I concur with that...
2010 Winter Olympics + IOC + social media = interesting battles
Posted on October 08, 2009The IOC is well known for its relentless control over everything relating to the Olympics. After all, it makes its money by selling sponsorship and broadcasting/reporting rights. That attempt to control runs headlong into the expectations and desires of athletes and fans to participate in the Olympics...
Canadian consumer handbook
Posted on October 07, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: Industry Canada has published a new version of its Canadian Consumer Handbook. It is actually quite a good summary of things that the average consumer should know, including how to complain to a vendor, various scams to be aware of, cellphones, charities, collection [...
Did US border policies scupper the Chicago Olympic bid?
Posted on October 06, 2009It is being suggested that IOC concern over US border policies may have been a significant factor in Chicago not getting the 2016 Olympics. Canadians and the Canadian government have been critical of the new, tougher US border policies. Perhaps another instance where the risk/reward of security procedures is out of whack – and where security theatre has [...
Making data anonymous can be tricky
Posted on October 05, 2009For the London Free Press – October 5, 2009 Read this on Canoe PERSONAL INFORMATION: Reidentification of individuals by comparing anonymous data to other sources of data can be surprisingly easy Making personal information anonymous is trickier than it seems...
UK court orders service via twitter
Posted on October 02, 2009The BBC news reports that the UK High Court has ordered that an injunction be served via twitter. From the article: The order is to be served against an unknown Twitter user who anonymously posts to the site using the same name as a right-wing political blogger...
Rule of Law vs the Rule of Reason
Posted on September 30, 2009That’s my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: I was reading my usual RSS feeds this morning, partly to see if I could find some inspiration for my Slaw post for today, and found the following post on Techdirt. I couldn?t agree more ? and since this is one of those ?like he said? [...
Class action against Great West Life begins
Posted on September 29, 2009A London courtroom heard the start of opening arguments yesterday in a class action trial that is scheduled to last 10 weeks. Colleagues of mine at Harrison Pensa are acting for the class – arguing that when GWL bought London Life in 1997, they improperly used policyholder money to finance the purchase...
Disclosure of personal health info limited
Posted on September 28, 2009For the London Free Press – September 28, 2009 Read this on Canoe PRIVACY: The Personal Health Information Protection Act spells out three basic ways that such information can be released The term “Circle of Care” is often used to describe the ability of health-care professionals to share patient information among those treating that patient...
CBA guidelines on using electronic marketing
Posted on September 23, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows. Today?s CBA E-News contains a link to a report described as: The CBA?s Ethics and Professional Responsibility Committee presents a new report interpreting the CBA?s Code of Professional Conduct in the context of the new media...
Law Society CLE – Security for Lawyers in a Wired World
Posted on September 22, 2009Any lawyers who read this might find this upcoming CLE program interesting/useful. It is described as: In an increasingly paperless world, you no longer need to leave the office with a full briefcase. Are you sacrificing your clients’ confidentiality by your increased use of technology? Attend this program to learn the essentials of metadata, encryption, and [...
Internet is not a place to hide
Posted on September 21, 2009For the London Free Press – September 21, 2009 Read this on Canoe ONLINE ACCOUNTABILITY: It does not shield against civil or criminal wrongdoing At its inception, the Internet was thought to be an unregulated medium. Online anonymity ensured that Net users could publish anything they desired without fear of repercussions...
Google – public domain books printed on demand
Posted on September 17, 2009The Google print project to digitize the world’s books has been controversial. I think this is one of those things that will impact us in ways most of us fail to grasp today. Take, for example, public domain out of copyright books – of which there are apparently more than 2 million...
Internet stats
Posted on September 16, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: Steve Rubel has a post today entitled Stats: the Internet in charts. Before you click on the link, take a guess at how long it would take you to read the entire internet if you printed it off, or how much area that paper [...
Online threats continue to grow
Posted on September 14, 2009For the London Free Press – September 14, 2009 Read this on Canoe Financial gain, notoriety and mischief are main motivators for unscrupulous ‘Net users, report says. Symantec, maker of Norton Antivirus, recently released its mid-year update of 2009 Security Trends...
Social networking effect on job applicants
Posted on September 11, 2009There has been a lot written about how what is found online about a person can affect their job prospects. Employers often check out a prospective employee’s online reputation. And people are reminded that what they post online, such as on Facebook, will be looked at by potential employers...
Privacy Fail: Anonymization
Posted on September 09, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: Data about individuals can be a valuable resource. Organizations holding personal information often aggregate or anonymize that data in order to gain valuable information on various trends...
1 character .biz names about to be auctioned
Posted on September 08, 2009The Webnames.ca newsletter points out that starting September 23, 1 character .biz names will be auctioned off. That means addresses such as 1.biz, and a.biz . It will be interesting to see what kind of money these go for. On the one hand, single character domain names are as easy to remember as they come...
Doctorow on Cloud Computing
Posted on September 04, 2009Cory Doctorow has an article in the Guardian entitled Not every cloud has a silver lining that is worth a read. Cloud computing is a current shiny object. But its not for everyone, or every application. The article starts with: The tech press is full of people who want to tell you how completely awesome life is going [...
Border Crossings and Laptops - I don’t get it
Posted on September 02, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: Simon posted US Homeland Security?s new rules on laptop searches for those crossing the border into the US. While there are some guidelines, they basically have the unfettered discretion to look at everything that is on one?s laptop...
Court backs plagiarism detector
Posted on August 31, 2009For the London Free Press - August 31, 2009 Read this on Canoe TECHNOLOGY: Service cross-references students’ work against a database of essays During recent years, plagiarism has become a serious concern for universities and colleges. The prevalence of websites selling previously written essay papers has made obtaining counterfeit work easier than ever...
2010 - year of the tablet?
Posted on August 28, 2009Take a look at this Wired article. That article is a few weeks old, but was referred to in this post from yesterday about Apple’s upcoming announcements. I’ve thought for years that the touch screen tablet form factor was a winner - the problem is that the price has always been too high, and the performance never that [...
Court ruling backs oral contract
Posted on August 27, 2009For the London Free Press - August 17, 2009 [Note: Due to a technical glitch, this column has not yet been posted on the Free Press or Canoe websites] VERDICT: A recent Ontario Court of Appeal decision showed that it?s possible to enforce oral contracts under the right circumstances Oral contracts can be difficult to enforce...
Copyright reform survey results
Posted on August 26, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows. Last week I posed a survey on copyright reform. Here are the results. The result is overwhelming. So in anticipation of comments pointing out the following: - it clearly was not scientifically accurate - it is quite possible that the question was biased - it may reflect the [...
Outdated tech terms
Posted on August 25, 2009Businessweek has an article entitled 12 Words You Can Never Say in the Office that tells why using these terms will make you seem out of date.
Ruling says bar’s tactics over top
Posted on August 24, 2009For the London Free Press August 24, 2009 Read this on Canoe PRIVACY: A patron complained after his driver’s licence was scanned and his photo taken before he was allowed into a Vancouver club British Columbia Information and Privacy Commissioner David Loukidelis recently released a decision in response to a complaint by a customer of the Wild Coyote [...
Copyright reform survey - what do you think?
Posted on August 19, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. Please vote. With the copyright reform hearings and public input now in full gear, I thought it would be interesting to get a feel for where readers are at with this issue. So I created this quick, clearly unscientific poll...
Legal privilege vs freedom of information - court decision
Posted on August 13, 2009There is always a struggle between the concepts of privacy and confidentiality on one hand, and transparency and freedom on the other. Dan Michaluk has a case comment in his All About Information blog discussing a recent Ontario decision that sided with the LCBO in its denial to release certain documents under a freedom of [...
The Onion on Google privacy - opt out and relocate to remote village
Posted on August 12, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: There has been lots of controversy over privacy issues relating to various services offered by Google and many others. Those issues are often not easy to come to grips with because they are in the context of previously unknown territory...
Bell vs Rogers - internet speed claims
Posted on August 11, 2009Michael Geist has an article about the recent lawsuit Bell launched against Rogers after Rogers aired an ad critical of Bell’s internet speed claims. We have all seen the Bell and Rogers ads that tout their advantages over the other for their various services (better/faster/cheaper/more HD/more channels/less equipment/easier to set up/more reliable…)...
More nations bid to block Internet
Posted on August 10, 2009For the London Free Press - August 10, 2009 Read this on Canoe More governments are looking at ways to censor Internet content. Australia and China have plans to install Internet filters to block access to certain sites. In Australia, the proposed filter would block unsuitable subject matter such as child pornography and violence...
Facebook - brand protection with a catch?
Posted on August 07, 2009Out-Law.com has an article entitled Facebook IP protection is only for companies that join that says Facebook’s protection against misuse of brand names in Facebook names is only available if the brand is actually registered as a username. A cynical person might wonder if this is in part a way to get more businesses to [...
Privacy Commissioner Sponsors Camera Surveillance Workshop
Posted on August 05, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: Surveillance cameras seem to be everywhere these days. They are one of the creeping invasions of privacy that raise difficult issues. Isolated cameras on private homes or businesses controlled by the owner and which retain images for short periods of time are easy to [...
UK putting cameras in private homes
Posted on August 04, 2009In the “you’ve got to be kidding” category is a post on Wired Gadget Lab that refers to an article in the Daily Express that says the UK government is going to put 20,000 UK “problem families” under 24 hour CCTV supervision in their own homes...
Happy Sysadmin day
Posted on July 31, 2009Today is System Administrator Appreciation Day. Check out the official web site. And ThinkGeek has some gift suggestions.
Technology advances creep up on us
Posted on July 30, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: Bill Gates has been quoted as saying: ?We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.? To put that in perspective, lets compare some specs...
Copyright consultations - information and tools
Posted on July 28, 2009Michael Geist just launched a new site called Speak Out on Copyright. Its worth a look by anyone interested in the current copyright consultations. The intro to the site says: On July 20, 2009, Industry Minister Tony Clement and Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore launched the first Canadian public consultation on copyright policy since 2001...
Ruling boon to cable firms, customers. COPYRIGHT: Remote recorders save cable providers and subscribers money
Posted on July 27, 2009For the London Free Press - July 27, 2009 Read this on Canoe On July 6, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal by a number of film studios and television networks of a ruling that allows Cablevision Systems Corp. to provide a new online digital video recorder service...
privacy fail - bank information via email
Posted on July 24, 2009A client passed this along to post. They started to receive statements via email. The pdf statements had the account numbers blocked, but all the financial info was there. The client emailed the financial institution to indicate its displeasure, saying that email was not a secure channel, the statements contain sensitive business information, and they were not given an [...
Robo-ethicist - new specialty for lawyers?
Posted on July 23, 2009Wired Gadget Lab has an article entitled Robo-Ethicists Want to Revamp Asimov?s 3 Laws. Seems that some think that Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics are too simplistic. Those 3 laws say: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm...
Canadian Copyright consultations begin
Posted on July 21, 2009The Federal government has just launched public consultations intended to lead to a new copyright reform bill. The last few attempts to revise copyright law have not become law - but have been highly controversial. This is an important topic that affects things we do every day...
Failure raises Clear privacy concerns
Posted on July 20, 2009For the London Free Press - July 20, 2009 Read this on Canoe No one enjoys long lines at the airport, so when Verified Identity Pass Inc, introduced a service called Clear that promised to shorten delays for frequent business flyers, it seemed like a good idea...
CRTC network management hearings over - decision in a few months
Posted on July 16, 2009Michael has a post summarizing his thoughts on the hearings. I follow this subject from a distance out of interest - but it strikes me that one of the reasons we get such varied views and suspicions is that the facts are not always clear. Of course, there will always be differences of opinion between those [...
Gain customers by turning them away
Posted on July 15, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: Author and marketing guru Seth Godin has a post today on his blog that rings true for anyone selling anything ? including lawyers. He talks about products where a buyer?s perception of them may not be the reality ? leading to frustration after the product [...
LABOUR ARBITRATION: It is not always practical to keep all of our information within our borders
Posted on July 13, 2009For the London Free Press - July 13, 2009 Read this on Canoe A labour arbitrator recently considered whether Lakehead University’s switch to Google mail violated the faculty collective agreement. The university stated that the main reason for the switch to Google was because of the growing cost and effort of having an internal e-mail system...
CRTC network management hearings - congestion or competition?
Posted on July 10, 2009The network management hearings continue. And Michael’s coverage continues. One of the interesting fundamental issues that has emerged is whether network management is about congestion or competition. It seems that proponents talk about the need to deal with congestion, while opponents talk about the unfairness of using network management to provide a competitive advantage...
Consumer advocacy by Youtube - United Breaks Guitars
Posted on July 09, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: Frustrated consumers and lawyers alike often threaten to take complaints to the press in an attempt to get satisfaction for an alleged wrong. After all, the ?headline risk? of being perceived in a bad light by the public can sometimes be a sobering [...
CRTC network management - aka net neutrality - hearings underway
Posted on July 07, 2009The CRTC’s network managemement hearings began yesterday. A CBC article summarizes the scope of the hearing as: “The CRTC is trying to develop guidelines for internet service providers on acceptable ways of managing internet traffic and congestion, taking into account both the freedom individuals to use the internet as they wish and the interests of ISPs [...
NDA’s - Recent RIM case teaches what you need to know about need-to-know laws
Posted on July 06, 2009For the London Free Press - July 6, 2009 Read this on Canoe Despite recent trends toward corporate transparency, it is still necessary to guard certain information. A recent case involving Research In Motion dealt with the interpretation of a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA, meant to limit what RIM could do with the other party’s information...
Trade-marks guide updated
Posted on June 30, 2009I have updated and split into 2 the trade-marks guide I created for my clients. trade-marks-guide-part-1-registering-a-trade-mark summarizes what one should know before selecting and registering a trade-mark, and the advantages of registering. trade-marks-guide-part-2-after-registration summarizes how to properly use and care for a trade-mark after it is registered.
Social Media in the courtroom - New technology a legal balancing act
Posted on June 29, 2009For the London Free Press - June 29, 2009 Read this on Canoe We are seeing rapid developments in use of technology in court, including twittering, texting, “Googling,” and using Facebook during trial. These tools can be helpful, but can also lead to abuse of the process...
Unencrypted laptop violates UK privacy law
Posted on June 26, 2009Outlaw.com has a report that starts by saying: “Manchester City Council broke the Data Protection Act when it failed to encrypt laptop computers containing data on nearly two thousand workers. The local authority has promised to ensure all mobile computers are encrypted...
Cloud Computing Myths
Posted on June 23, 2009BusinessWeek has an article entitled Busting Cloud Computing Myths that is a worthwhile read for anyone curious about cloud computing. For example, there is just 1 cloud, and cloud computing always saves you money. The ultimate conclusion is: “What’s the takeaway? That the cloud isn’t a magic wonderland of carefree computing, but a complex resource that [...
Registering a creative industrial design is a way for a company to protect one kind of brand identification
Posted on June 22, 2009For the London Free Press - June 22, 2009 Read this on Canoe Registered industrial designs are less well-known than other types of intellectual property protection, but can be a valuable tool in the right circumstances. A registered industrial design protects unique features of shape, configuration, pattern or ornament applied to an article...
Montana town requires social network passwords from job applicants
Posted on June 19, 2009In the “you’re kidding, right?” category is a story about Bozeman City, Montana job applications that require the applicant to disclose all the social networking sites they use (aka Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube, etc.) including their user names, log-on ID’s, and passwords...
Canadian Lawful Access Bill & US NSA domestic spying
Posted on June 18, 2009Michael reports that a new “lawful access” bill is about to be introduced that is intended to give authorities easier access to private communications. Also see Cory Doctorow’s take on it . The privacy commissioner and CAIP (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) are not enamoured of the idea either...
Olympics athlete blogging rules set - update
Posted on June 17, 2009For my Slaw post this week I referred to my Free Press article from Monday, being the last post I made. But I added some thoughts based on a Slaw post from the 2008 Olympics. It reads as follows: That?s the title of my Free Press article for this week...
Olympics athlete blogging rules set
Posted on June 15, 2009For the London Free Press Read this on Canoe The International Olympic committee (IOC) recently announced its athlete blogging rules for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. There are still restrictions, but they are more flexible than those for the 2008 Beijing Games, which was the first time athletes could blog about their experiences...
Facebook allows usernames - protect trade-marks NOW
Posted on June 12, 2009Facebook has announced that effective at 12:01 am Saturday they anyone with an existing Facebook account can claim a user name. They have not given much notice, so anyone with a trade-mark needs to act quickly to lessen the chances that anyone else will try to obtain a username using one’s trade-mark...
The Streisand Effect ? demand letters in a Web 2.0 world
Posted on June 10, 2009Presentation to the Middlesex Law Association. The ?Streisand effect? is what happens when someone tries to suppress something and the opposite occurs. The act of suppressing it raises the profile, making it much more well known than it otherwise would have been...
Do ‘I’m on vacation’ posts pose security concerns?
Posted on June 10, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post today. It reads as follows: Take a look at the article by that title on the Canoe Tech page. It questions whether the tendency for people to put reply messages on emails that they are on vacation, or talk about their vacation plans or current locations on Facebook and Twitter [...
The decline of telecom in Canada
Posted on June 09, 2009Michael Geist recently appeared before the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications to discuss the state of telecommunications in Canada. The committee is conducting a study on the wireless sector and access to high-speed Internet. Michael’s opening statement and the transcript make interesting - and frustrating - reading...
Don’t expect privacy on work computers
Posted on June 08, 2009For the London Free Press - June 8, 2009 Read this on Canoe Do you have a reasonable expectation of privacy when using an employer-owned computer? That was the issue before the Superior Court of Justice on March 12 in Regina vs. Cole. According to the facts of the case, a school information technologist found nude photos of a [...
CRTC decides to keep hands off new media
Posted on June 05, 2009Michael reports that the CRTC’s just released decision based on their new media hearings that were held in February is that they will continue to not regulate media over the internet. The CRTC’s press release says in part: ?While broadcasting in new media is growing in importance, we do not believe that regulatory intervention is necessary [...
Copyright levies more costly than the media
Posted on June 02, 2009Techdirt points out a post by Howard Knopf on his Excess Copyright blog (not sure how I missed this last week, as I follow Howard’s blog) that points out that because of increasing capacities and lowering prices, the copyright levy on blank CD’s is the majority of the price...
Proposed anti-spam bill merits close attention
Posted on June 01, 2009For the London Free Press - June 1, 2009 Read this on Canoe The federal government recently tabled an anti-spam bill aimed at reducing spam originating in Canada. The anti-spam bill, officially known as the Electronic Commerce Protection Act (ECPA), also would apply to text messaging, instant messaging, phishing, spyware and botnets...
Round-up of new stuff
Posted on May 29, 2009Is it just me, or have we seen an unusual number of new product announcements recently? Sure, some have been in the mill for a while and are just getting closer to launch, but here are some things that have been getting attention recently. They all seem to be getting a lot of positive press/hype [...
UK license plate spy cameras
Posted on May 28, 2009Add this to inconsistencies I don’t understand. Google street view often gets lambasted for privacy issues. That happens when an individual or a car license plate is visible. Since these street views are one time images - one only gets captured if one happens to be in view of the camera at the specific time and place [...
Jim Carroll speaks to TechAlliance
Posted on May 27, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: Canadian futurist Jim Carroll (@jimcarroll)just spoke about innovation at the London TechAlliance AGM. Here are some of the points that got my attention. (We used to call these sound bites or bullet points - I?ve already seem some of these show up in [...
Canada proposes to fingerprint before laying charge
Posted on May 26, 2009David Fraser points out that: “The federal government introduced legislation in Parliament to “modernize” criminal procedure in Canada. What it means, among other things, is that police will get the authority to fingerprint suspects even before charges are laid...
Solving disputes online cheaper, faster
Posted on May 25, 2009For the London Free Press - May 25, 2009 Read this on Canoe Online alternative dispute resolution (ADR) may be the future of dispute resolution. ADR has been used for many years to resolve disputes outside the court system. It involves parties agreeing to mediate or arbitrate their dispute rather than pursue it through the courts...
Can’t sell your house? - create your own lottery!
Posted on May 22, 2009Outlaw.com has an article about a British family that was having trouble selling their house. So they sold Ł25 tickets and raffled it off. They were successful enough that others are trying it too. They apparently sold 46,000 tickets for a total gain of Ł1...
Microsoft says go direct to Windows 7
Posted on May 20, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: In a recent speech Bill Veghte - senior vice president, Windows business, for Microsoft - advised that if a business is now in the testing phase to upgrade from XP to Vista, they should stop and go direct to Windows 7...
London a prime location - let us make cake
Posted on May 19, 2009The London Free Press series Beyond Crisis: A Free Press series exploring our region’s next economy has an article today entitled Prime Location for Changes that explores the thought that one of London’s key strengths going into the next economy is our location...
eBay not liable for fakes in France
Posted on May 15, 2009Several sources are reporting that a French court refused to hold eBay responsible for counterfeit L’Oreal products sold on its site. That is contrary to earlier French cases - but consistent with the North American position. eBay does suspend sales of counterfeit goods when advised of them by the rightful manufacturer, but it does not pre-screen [...
Copyright - issues to ponder
Posted on May 14, 2009Mike Masnick of Techdirt has a post entitled How Long Can You Go Without Infringing On Copyright? that points to a post on Dvorak.org, discussing how hard it is to not infringe on copyrights, noting that the original system was not built for a digital world...
Maximizing your online presence
Posted on May 13, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: That was the title of a presentation I attended this morning at the London TechAlliance breakfast club series. David Ciccarelli of Voices.com was the presenter. He is well qualified to present, as he has built his business using these methods...
Why lawyers get fired
Posted on May 12, 2009Take a look at this blog entry entitled Quick ways to get fired as a lawyer. Even though these may seem to be obvious things not to do, the author claims to have witnessed them all.
Destroy sensitive info before you toss it
Posted on May 11, 2009For the London Free Press - May 11, 2009 Read this on Canoe In R. v. Patrick, released by the Supreme Court of Canada last month, the court considered whether one has a reasonable expectation of privacy over the contents of garbage once it’s put out at the curb...
New Kindle debuts - but not in Canada
Posted on May 07, 2009I was just about to write a post on how this is just another example of stuff we can’t get in Canada - and discovered that Steven Matthews already commented on this in a Slaw post. He says in part: I would really love to have a Kindle. really. And this story from the Silicon Alley [...
Data directive expansion creates concern
Posted on May 05, 2009For the London Free Press - May 4, 2009 Read this on Canoe The new European Data Retention Directive requires Internet service providers in Europe to retain information about all e-mails and VOIP calls made by all customers for at least one year. The directive also allows police and many other public bodies access to that data...
Canada introduces anti-spam bill - The Electronic Commerce Protection Act
Posted on April 28, 2009A bill has been introduced that is intended to cut down on email spam originating from Canada. I’ll have more to say about this later - but for now, here are some links to commentary by Michael Geist. Michael’s thoughts on the bill are worth a look as he was on a task force a [...
Privacy issues not always practical
Posted on April 27, 2009For the London Free Press - April 27, 2009 Read this on Canoe Services that take continuous photographs along public streets raise privacy issues. Google Street View is the most popular, but by no means the only company doing that. While these privacy issues are real, we must remain practical about their application of such technology...
EU CTM (Community trade-mark) fees lowered
Posted on April 24, 2009The official filing/registration fees for CTM trade-marks is being lowered by 40%. A CTM is 1 trade-mark application that gets it registered in all EU countries. Considering the number of countries that entails, the cost to register a CTM is quite reasonable.
BC Election candidate quits over racy Facebook photos
Posted on April 23, 2009A BC NDP candidate just dropped out of the election because of some racy photos on his Facebook page. Mike Masnick of Techdirt points out that he had a post 3 years ago that suggested this might happen based on an article I wrote at the time. Mike comments that we have not yet reached the point where [...
Law and Technology
Posted on April 22, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: Recent Slaw posts talk about Blackberry?s, the ABA Techshow, social media, online ADR, and online legal resources. Richard Susskind talks about how technology is fundamentally changing the practice of law, and how we will provide services in the future...
Study shows downloaders buy more music
Posted on April 21, 2009Michael Geist and Boing Boing both point to a Norwegian study that shows that people who tend to download more music also tend to buy more. They point out that this is consistent with a previous Canadian study.
Web privacy, disclosure a tussle
Posted on April 20, 2009For the London Free Press - April 20, 2009 Read this on Canoe In recent years, there has been a struggle between the right to privacy and the right to disclosure of information in criminal and civil court actions. The courts have not been consistent in their approach...
TechAlliance and Harrison Pensa bring Jim Carroll to AGM
Posted on April 15, 2009This years’s TechAlliance AGM and Power Breakfast features Jim Carroll as speaker. Here’s the press release: FORMER LONDONER TURNED INTERNATIONAL FUTURIST AND AUTHOR TO SPEAK AT TECHALLIANCE EVENT LONDON, ONTARIO, APRIL 15, 2009- TechAlliance, with Harrison Pensa LLP, will host former Londoner and leading international futurist, author, and trends and innovation expert Jim Carroll on Wednesday, May 27 at [...
“Stealing” web content - an example
Posted on April 14, 2009We all hear about web sites that simply take the content of others and post it as if it is their own - usually to try to make money off ads. They add no original comment or commentary. They are commonly referred to as “scraper sites“. Sometimes they give attribution to the original site and/or [...
Cloud computing requires savvy
Posted on April 13, 2009For the London Free Press Read this on Canoe TECHNOLOGY: Storing or sharing personal information on remote computers controlled by others is a common practice fraught with potential problems Cloud computing is touted as the solution to many users’ problems — but is cloud computing itself a problem? Cloud computing is not bad per se...
Google’s use of trade-marks as keywords might be infringement
Posted on April 09, 2009Out-law.com has an article entitled Google’s sale of trade mark as keyword may be ‘use in commerce’, says US Court of Appeals. The use of the trade-marks of others for either keywords to trigger paid ads, or in the visible ads themselves has been controversial...
Mesh conference
Posted on April 08, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: I attended day 1 of the Mesh conference yesterday. (I had a conflict for today - but a colleague is going in my place.) Some video from the event is already on the Mesh site. The highlight for me was the keynote by Mike [...
Appeal court rules on war of whisky words
Posted on April 06, 2009For the London Free Press - April 6, 2009 Read this on Canoe SPIRITED ARGUMENT: Geographical indicators aim to protect certain regions’ wine and liquor from imitators With barbecue season fast approaching, the most obvious topic of discussion is trade-marks and alcoholic beverages...
People search engines border on creepiness
Posted on April 03, 2009PCWorld.ca has a good article entitled People Search Engines: They Know Your Dark Secrets. . . And Tell Anyone. It talks about search engines meant to find information on people, such as www.pipl.com and http://www.spokeo.com/ . They search various public sites to get the information, such as social networking sites, amazon wish lists, flickr, etc...
Ten things I would ban
Posted on April 01, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: Here are some things I would ban if I was in charge. (And no - while this is a bit facetious - its not an April fools joke.) What would you add to the list? legal sized paper fax machines paper closing books the phrase ?but we?ve [...
London England anti-terror posters remix
Posted on March 31, 2009Boing Boing posted a remix challenge to mock the new anti-terror posters I mentioned a few days ago. Some of them are quite good - definitely worth a look.
Guitar manufacturer takes licks
Posted on March 30, 2009For the London Free Press - March 30, 2009 Read this on Canoe Virtual reality was taken to a new level recently when famous guitar manufacturer, Gibson, sued Activision Publishing, Inc., creators of Guitar Hero, alleging that the video game system infringed upon one of its patents...
.tel open for use - do you have yours?
Posted on March 26, 2009Check out davidcanton.tel for my first attempt at providing my contact information. I’ve written about this before here and here. .tel has the potential to become a universal phone book - but its success depends on wide adoption. .tel addresses are available from various name registrars...
New London England Anti-terror posters
Posted on March 25, 2009Thats the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads: Cory Doctorow writes on Boing Boing about the latest anti-terrorist campaign in England. His entire post is a worthwhile read - but to get a flavour of it: The London police have bested their own impressive record for insane and stupid anti-terrorism posters with a new range [...
Ponder Games releases Pufu’s Spiral
Posted on March 24, 2009London’s Ponder Games has released Pufu’s Spiral: Adventures Around the World, a video game with an environmental theme. It can be downloaded at Bigfish Games, where it is described as: Pufu the penguin is tired of all the snow that surrounds his home, and longs for something different...
Trade-marks not allowed to be merely descriptive
Posted on March 23, 2009For the London Free Press - March 23, 2009 Read this on Canoe People often think of adopting trade-marks that describe their product or service. But that results in a weak trade-mark and is not allowed under the Trade-marks Act. A trade-mark is used to distinguish one company’s products or services from those of another...
Copyright - Tell Me Lies by Michael Geist
Posted on March 19, 2009Michael has a must read post entitled Tell Me Lies that is the text of his remarks at a copyright conference yesterday. He starts with a quote from a recent article by Clay Shirky ( another must read) on the future of newspapers that says: “When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, [...
iPhone 3.0 debuts
Posted on March 18, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: The big tech news yesterday was Apple?s preview of the new iPhone 3.0 software that is available now for developers, and this summer as a free upgrade for iPhone users. The Apple mystique and reality distortion field continue despite Steve Jobs? absence from the [...
Ignored contract is still in force, top court says
Posted on March 16, 2009For the London Free Press - March 16, 2009 Read this on Canoe The Supreme Court of Canada recently rejected a lower court’s decision that you can’t enforce a contract that you’ve demonstrated no intention to comply with. In Jedfro Investments (U...
Happy Pi Day
Posted on March 13, 2009Tomorow, being March 14, or 3.14, is Pi Day. (Lets face it, the Pi approximation days are a bit of a stretch). Or to get more precise, Pi minute is 3.14159, or March 14 at 1:59 p.m. (Lets ignore the fact that it should be at 1:59 am.) Take a look at Pi Day’s “official web [...
Touchscreen restaurant tables
Posted on March 12, 2009The Wired Gadget Lab blog has an article about a restaurant in London (the other London, unfortunately) that projects touchscreens on its tables. You order your food by selecting menu items off the touchscreen projections, and view and pay your bill the same way...
Hope for balanced copyright reform in Canada?
Posted on March 10, 2009Howard Knopf points to a Canwest article talking about how Heritage Minister James Moore uses PVR’s and iPods. That’s important because under current law, and the last proposed copyright reform bill, some of the things we all routinely do with those types of device technically violates copyright laws...
Peers question British surveillance
Posted on March 09, 2009For the London Free Press - March 9, 2009 Read this on Canoe George Orwell’s depiction of state surveillance in 1984 is beginning to look less like science fiction and more like reality in the United Kingdom, where successive governments have created one of the most extensive and advanced surveillance systems in the world...
CNN on Kindle - quotes London’s Voices.com
Posted on March 06, 2009The Kindle text to speech feature has created a controversy on both the legal issue of copyright, and the business/consumer issue of the merits of computerized text to speech vs. audio books using voice actors. Those on the voice actor side say that a computer generated voice just can’t match a human voice for subtlety, tone and [...
Amazon Kindle text to speech a copyright violation?
Posted on February 26, 2009The Authors Guild is upset with the new Kindle, claiming that its text to speech feature violates copyright. Several comments have been made about the dubiousness of the claim. See the New York Times op-ed by the president of the Authors Guild called The Kindle Swindle...
CRTC net neutrality comments
Posted on February 25, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: Connie wrote a couple of days ago about the submission deadline for the upcoming CRTC network neutrality / network management / traffic shaping hearings. Since then, some submissions have been made public that illustrate how important this hearing will be, and how it will [...
Battle over Toronto police data brings landmark access ruling
Posted on February 23, 2009For the London Free Press - February 23, 2009 Read this on Canoe The Ontario Court of Appeal recently handed down what is being hailed as a landmark decision in terms of openness and transparency in electronic records. A complaint by James Rankin, a journalist at the Toronto Star newspaper, led to an adjudicator’s decision, an appeal to [...
Barcelona GSMA 2009
Posted on February 19, 2009The annual event in Barcelona where the cell phone manufacturers and carriers announce their new offerings is underway. More details can be found on the tech press, such as CNET. Android based phones have been announced for Europe. Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6...
Follow the CRTC new media hearings
Posted on February 18, 2009The CRTC started its new media hearing yesterday. It will consider whether the CRTC should regulate the Internet in some way - the thought being that it is just another form of broadcasting. Its an important issue that will no doubt garner a lot of press...
Happy 1234567890 day!
Posted on February 13, 2009Unix and other systems count time by using a 32 bit field to count the seconds starting from January 1, 1970 (known as the Unix epoch). So at 6:31 Eastern time today Unix time will be 1234567890. There are actually a few events planned around this milestone...
Sirius-XM solution - IMHO
Posted on February 12, 2009There are rumours in the press about possible bankruptcy/restructuring for Sirius-XM satellite radio. It seems that one of the problems is their rather pricey deals with content providers. Another problem, in my view, is that the service simply costs too much for consumers...
IP law in 30 minutes
Posted on February 11, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: I just got back from giving a presentation on IP law to a group of accountants, in which I gave a high level view of various forms of intellectual property. I have been asked to give this presentation several times over the years, [...
House of Lords: Surveillance society undermines fundamental freedoms
Posted on February 10, 2009The British House of Lords just released a report that expressed concern over the UK’s extensive CCTV surveillance network (4 million cameras) and its growing DNA database containing information even on innocent people. Read a Guardian article about the report.
Computer tinkering can pay dividends
Posted on February 09, 2009For the London Free Press - February 9, 2009 Read this on Canoe In 2007, the Ontario government blocked its employees from accessing Facebook. This is common in many companies and organizations where YouTube, MySpace and various other networking and online applications are also banned...
Piracy’s effects on movies and TV
Posted on February 06, 2009Techdirt comments on a New York Times article that talks about the hardship caused to the industry by the downloading of movies and TV shows. Techdirt’s position (and i tend to be more on the Techdirt side on this one) is that the arguments and stats used by the industry just don’t add up...
Photographers treated as terrorists
Posted on February 04, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: There has been a disturbing trend towards authorities in various countries stopping, questioning, and even arresting people who are simply taking photographs of public places. Somehow taking a photo equates in some people?s minds to gathering information for terrorist purposes...
Copyright - derivative vs transformative works
Posted on February 03, 2009Techdirt has a post that refers to a Wall Street journal article entitled Color This Area of the Law Gray that talks about artists being inspired by the works of others. It explores the concept of how different something has to be to be from an existing work to be non-infringing...
Foresight key to protecting names, brand - Twittersquatting
Posted on February 02, 2009For the London Free Press - February 2, 2009 Read this on Canoe Almost everyone has heard about people who register website domain names, such as “mcdonalds.com,” with no legitimate claim to them. The same thing may now be happening with usernames on social networking services such as Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook...
retailcommon is live - check it out
Posted on January 28, 2009retailcommon is a new concept in online retailing that is worth a look. Click on the graphic at the top for a brief introduction to its features. It will offer the sale of fashion/clothing to consumers, but with some unique twists. Products are provided by retailers local to the consumer...
Today is Data Privacy Day
Posted on January 28, 2009From my Slaw post for today: Fellow Slawer David Fraser points out that today is Data Privacy Day, being celebrated in the United States, Canada, and 27 European countries. Intel?s privacy day page says: Designed to raise awareness and generate discussion about data privacy practices and rights, Data Privacy Day activities in the United States have included privacy [...
Location awareness - the good, the bad, and the disturbing
Posted on January 27, 2009Wired magazine has an article written about a man’s experiment with a location aware lifestyle. He used an iPhone and various applications to see what would happen when location aware tools were used. He used them to find things, to feed his location into social networking sites, and to see what info he could find [...
Law makes it a crime not to report
Posted on January 26, 2009For the London Free Press - January 26, 2009 Read this on Canoe Despite concerns over its practicality, Ontario legislators passed a new child pornography reporting law last month. Bill 37 — the Child Pornography Reporting Act, 2008 — passed at Queen’s Park Dec...
Photographers fight back
Posted on January 23, 2009I’ve written before about how it is becoming too common in some countries for authorities to think that it is a crime for someone to simply take photographs. In the UK, for example, there is a suspicion that if one is taking photographs of a public facility, you might be a terrorist...
Obama’s TIGR (Technology, Innovation and Government Reform) Team.
Posted on January 20, 2009No point blogging on anything but Obama today. Michael points to a video showing the TIGR team discussing how the US government should use technology and the web 2.0 tools we now have to better and more efficiently provide its services. This is absolutely the right approach - one we should be taking here in Canada as [...
Ottawa should follow U.S. lead on technology - CTO for Canada
Posted on January 19, 2009For the London Free Press - January 19, 2009 Read this on Canoe Technology and its ramifications play an increasing role in our lives. Unfortunately, governments don’t always understand the social and political impacts of technology, or how their decisions and new legislation affects innovation and our use of technology...
Precedent as context, not an operating manual
Posted on January 14, 2009That’s the title of my Slaw post today. It Reads: I made that comment as an aside in an earlier post. This thought also ties in with a couple of Simon?s posts, and another of mine. This is true for not just legal documents, but for things like legislation, business and government policies, and processes...
Court overturns Alberta privacy decision for pawnshop records
Posted on January 13, 2009David Fraser refers to an Edmonton Journal article stating “Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Joanne Veit ruled Alberta Information and Privacy Commissioner Frank Work was wrong when he concluded the city can’t force pawnshops to upload personal client details to an outside company’s database...
U.S. race reflects Facebook’s arrival as political force - SOCIAL networking: Activism has found an effective medium
Posted on January 12, 2009For the London Free Press - January 12, 2009 Read this on Canoe What started as a social- networking system for Harvard University students is becoming a political force to be reckoned with. Founded in 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg as a social-networking site, Facebook has quickly become an international phenomenon...
CES offers cool new products
Posted on January 09, 2009The annual Consumer Electronics Show is under way in Las Vegas. As usual, new products are shown that one just must have. The only problem - it takes a while before they are available or affordable, or the product one now owns that it replaces will break...
Woman fired by Facebook message
Posted on January 08, 2009The Calgary Herald reports that a woman was recently fired from her job by a message sent to her via Facebook. She had only been at the job for 2 weeks. So is “cyber sacking” the way of the future, or just a cruel/lazy way to terminate someone?
UK police can hack into PC’s without a warrant
Posted on January 07, 2009Slashdot points to a Times article saying that “The Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people?s personal computers without a warrant. ” This of course doesn’t sit well with privacy advocates...
Early release of Microsoft Windows 7 system likely
Posted on January 05, 2009For the London Free Press - January 5, 2009 Read this on Canoe It’s time to hazard some predictions for 2009 tech developments. REPLACING VISTA Microsoft probably will bring out its Windows 7 operating system early, given the cool reception Vista has received...
5 legal reasons Santa answers to no geo-political authority
Posted on December 24, 2008That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: 1. Border crossings would delay his delivery. Imagine Santa explaining himself to a border guard/customs agent. 2. Reduces product liability risk for any defective toys. 3. Avoids scrutiny of privacy issues of the naughty/nice list...
Cameras as security theatre
Posted on December 23, 2008Techdirt and Slashdot comment that some people have placed images of license plates belonging to people they are not fond of on their own cars, then speeding by photo radar, resulting in the other person getting a ticket. Techdirt’s spin on this: In general, we have trouble with things like speed cameras and red light cameras — [...
Federal privacy watchdog weighs in
Posted on December 22, 2008For the London Free Press - December 22, 2008 Read this on Canoe Federal Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart recently published her 2007-08 annual report to Parliament on the Privacy Act. The report highlights concerns over the general increase in surveillance and the government’s lack of recognition that collecting and analysing a plethora of personal information from ordinary people [...
Yahoo to anonymize user data in 90 days
Posted on December 19, 2008Yahoo announce this week that it would anonymize search user data (in most cases) after only 90 days. That’s significantly less than Google or others - some of which until recently retained it for a couple of years. There has been a lot of pressure to reduce the amount of time that user data is [...
12 days of EFF
Posted on December 17, 2008I’ve referred to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) before. The EFF describes itself as the leading civil liberties group defending your rights in the digital world. They have summarized their work in 2008 by a video inspired by the 12 days of Christmas.
Document service by Facebook
Posted on December 16, 2008Seems that an Australian court ordered a default judgement to be served on two defendants by sending a message to their Facebook pages. See this article in the Australian Morning Herald. Cory Doctorow of Boing boing comments on how this is a bad idea, saying how “It’s like serving notice on me by sticking a post-it on [...
No shortage of ideas for gadget junkies
Posted on December 15, 2008For the London Free Press - December 15, 2008 Read this on Canoe Struggling with ideas for Christmas gifts for those into gadgets or technology? Here are some suggestions. Buy a backup solution for their home computer to protect from the loss of data in case of hard drive failure or erasure...
Spend infrastructure money on a London Performing Arts Centre
Posted on December 12, 2008If we are going to spend our way out of this recession by doing infrastructure projects, what better way than to build a performing arts centre in London. Lets get on with it and design/build a PAC that is the most environmentally friendly, functional and attractive PAC on the planet...
What Microsoft needs to fix with Windows mobile
Posted on December 11, 2008BusinessWeek has an article entitled Windows Mobile: What Microsoft Needs to Fix. It talks about how phones using the Windows mobile operating system are losing market share to the iPhone and Google Android, and what Microsoft needs to do to fix it. I hope Microsoft can pull it off with Mobile 7, and that they get [...
Another essential tech skill / pet peeve
Posted on December 10, 2008That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It was inspired by Dan Pinnington’s Slaw post from yesterday. It reads as follows: Dan?s 10 essential technology skills and practices contains some good tips (although I must admit I?m not good with keyboard shortcuts - I think more graphically and tend to use the mouse)...
CRTC new media hearing draws almost 100 written submissions
Posted on December 09, 2008Michael comments that the real fight in these hearings will come down to 3 issues - the isp levy, the new media regulatory exemption, and net neutrality. This will get interesting, as views range from complete hands off except to keep it neutral and open, to highly regulated Canadian content proposals...
Clear succession plan vital to business owners
Posted on December 08, 2008For the London Free Press - December 8, 2008 Read this on Canoe With an aging baby boomer population, succession planning is quickly becoming one of the biggest issues facing business owners. Lawyers are beginning to see the negative effects of the failure to plan ahead...
Federal privacy commissioner releases annual report on the Privacy Act
Posted on December 05, 2008The Privacy Act governs privacy issues regarding the Canadian federal government. Take a look at David Fraser’s post on it. I may have more to say later after I’ve had a chance to peruse it.
.tel sunrise period begins - will it be shiny object or paperweight?
Posted on December 04, 2008For more information on the unique new .tel TLD that I recently wrote about, take a look at this CircleID post. I’m not sure where this is headed. If its use becomes widely accepted, having the right .tel address might become very valuable. If not, it might become useless.
Small firms have a tech advantage
Posted on December 03, 2008That’s the title of my Slaw post from this am. It reads as follows: Speaking of ?Shouldn?t it just work?, I have been thinking that a sole practitioner or small firm actually is now at an advantage over larger firms regarding technology. Software required to run law firms - such as accounting and document management - has [...
Slaw makes ABA list of 100 best blogs
Posted on December 02, 2008Slaw has made the American Bar Association list of “the 100 best Web sites by lawyers, for lawyers, as chosen by the editors of the ABA Journal.” For those who don’t follow Slaw, it is a cooperative blog featuring posts by several contributors from various aspects of the legal profession...
Drew case makes bad precedent
Posted on December 02, 2008I’ve written before about how the notion that “there ought to be a law against that” can lead to ineffective laws with unintended consequences. The same can happen in the courts when it is perceived that someone has done something wrong - but it doesn’t fit neatly into the charges...
Domain name rules to change in 2009
Posted on December 01, 2008for the London Free Press - Dec 1, 2008 Read this on Canoe A recent decision by the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the organization responsible for global co-ordination of the Internet’s addressing system, will permit companies and individuals to turn their names into Web addresses: www...
Black friday deal? Buy a toaster - get a free bank
Posted on November 28, 2008Take a look at this amusing coupon on the Infectious Greed site.
UK regulators ban another iPhone ad
Posted on November 27, 2008Wired reports that the UK has banned an iPhone ad on the basis that it exaggerates the speed at which the phone operates. They also banned an iPhone ad a few months ago on the basis that the claim that all parts of the internet are on the phone was false because it doesn’t support [...
Social Media vs. Knowledge Management: a generational war
Posted on November 26, 2008That’s the title of my Slaw post from today, and the title of an article from socialcomputingmagazine.com. My post reads: That?s the title of an article worth reading at social computing magazine.com. (And speaking of social media, this article came to my attention via a Twitter post by Mathew Ingram...
.tel directory will keep you in loop
Posted on November 24, 2008For the London Free Press - November 24, 2008 Read this on Canoe The new .tel Internet top level domain, or TLD (.com is an example of a TLD) launching soon may revolutionize the way we keep in touch — assuming it becomes widely adopted. The new ...
Google Flu Trends privacy concerns
Posted on November 21, 2008Google recenty announced that they would use search requests to plot flu trends. They claim they can show flu trends 2 weeks faster than traditional methods. The trend data is anonymized so no one looking at the trends knows, for example, that I might have been one of the individuals who searched for “flu remedies”...
CRTC sides with Bell on throttling complaint - but will consider net neutrality later
Posted on November 20, 2008The big news today is the CRTC decision that denied CAIP’s application complaining about Bell’s internet throttling. The CRTC has however made it clear that it is not through with teh net neutrality issue. From the CRTC’s press release: ?CAIP?s application asked us to only consider the specific issue of wholesale traffic shaping within a specific context...
Fake Canada Revenue Agency letter scam
Posted on November 18, 2008Connie Crosby reports on Slaw that people are getting emails and letters that purport to be from the CRA. They say the CRA owes the people money, but the CRA does not have enough info to pay them. Of course, the scam is that if people respond with the requested info, they have given away [...
Copyright laws weaving a wicked web
Posted on November 17, 2008For the London Free Press - November 17, 2008 Read this on Canoe Be careful what you wish for. In this year’s U.S. and Canadian election campaigns, politicians discovered they are not immune from the laws they make. In the U.S., a copyright controversy involved Republican presidential candidate John McCain and YouTube...
Disruptive Chinese factories
Posted on November 13, 2008No - not in the sense of being polluters, or making toxic products - but in the sense of new ways to design, market and sell products that are disruptive to the whole supply chain. Robert Scoble has an interesting article on the subject. It says in part: Yesterday he showed me a new gadget that will [...
The economics of spam
Posted on November 12, 2008Thats the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and UC, San Diego have published a paper on a study they did on spam. They actually took over part of an existing spam botnet, and sent their own spam to test the response...
AVG anti-virus false positive
Posted on November 11, 2008Slashdot and other sources are reporting that an update to the popular AVG anti-virus product labels a critical file in Windows XP - user32.dll - as a virus that needs to be removed. If you do that, it cripples the computer. AVG has posted a fix, and I’m sure will offer an update to correct the issue...
Complaint spurred Ticketmaster change
Posted on November 10, 2008For the London Free Press - November 10, 2008 Read this on Canoe In a recent decision, Canada’s assistant privacy commissioner expressed “grave concern” after finding a major online company operating nationwide was violating federal privacy laws, years after the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) took effect...
Canadian bittorrent index site asks court if it is legal
Posted on November 07, 2008A Canoe tech article says that the owner of the isohunt search engine for bitorrent files has asked the BC Supreme court to rule on whether it violates the copyright Act. Seems that the Canadian Recording Industry Association has demanded that he take down the links - so rather than waiting for them to take action, [...
I’m officially banning “Nice to meet you” from my vocabulary
Posted on November 05, 2008That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: With all the exposure we get these days - including published articles, speaking engagements, blogs, websites, twitter, facebook, linkedin, flickr, ? - when do we actually ?meet? someone for the first time? When we meet someone in person, we may very well have seen them [...
Peer-to-peer file sharing now a fact of Internet life
Posted on November 03, 2008For the London Free Press - Nov 3, 2008 Read this on Canoe The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently marked the five-year anniversary of the Recording Industry of America’s (RIAA) mass litigation campaign to curtail music piracy on the Internet by releasing a comprehensive review...
eLegal is 4 years old
Posted on October 31, 2008It doesn’t seem like its been this long, but I made my first blog entry 4 years ago tomorrow. My first entry was a Free Press article I wrote about the then new Canadian version of the Creative commons license.
Use it, prove it, or lose it the law on trade-marks
Posted on October 29, 2008for the London Free Press - October 27, 2008 Read this on Canoe Many businesses rely on the branding of their products to increase profitability and secure a place in highly competitive markets. A recent Federal Court, Trial Division, decision illustrates how important it is for a business to be able to prove it has used its trade-marks [...
New political party? - the Nerd Party
Posted on October 24, 2008Given that we have just held our federal election, and the US is about to have theirs, a post on Boing Boing today entitled How the win the nerd vote caught my eye. It has 10 points: Broadband everywhere, universal healthcare, no federal tax on Internet purchases, renewed commitment to education, renewed commitment to science, real [...
Australian data breach survey
Posted on October 23, 2008Australian IT reports on a survey that paints a grim picture of data breach problems in Australia. I’m always a bit skeptical of survey results, especially when they are commissioned by an entity that’s trying to sell a product aimed at righting the wrongs shown in the survey...
Word processors won’t help in court
Posted on October 20, 2008For the London Free Press - October 20, 2008 Read this on Canoe Agreements are often created using standard “boilerplate” wording. A British court was recently critical of bad drafting and attacked the lawyers who let word processors do their thinking for them...
CRTC hearings on broadcasting and new media
Posted on October 16, 2008Michael notes that the CRTC has issued a notice detailing its upcoming hearings on broadcasting and new media, and asking for interested parties to participate. The CRTC has essentially kept its hands off the Internet so far. These hearings will consider whether that should continue, or whether the CRTC should regulate “broadcasting” over the Internet...
Entrepreneurs should be investor ready - for themselves
Posted on October 15, 2008That’s the title of my weekly Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: Lawyers often talk about how entrepreneurs should make their companies ?investor ready?. This uses the term ?investor? in the widest sense, meaning everything from a bank loan, to a VC investment, to the sale of the business to Google that allows the owner [...
Saturday Oct 11 is International day of protest against surveillance
Posted on October 10, 2008A reminder of my recent post on Slaw and here that tomorrow is being promoted in Europe as a day of protest against surveillance. Its no wonder that this is happening, especially in light of things like David Fraser posts about today, where cameras are being used in UK parks to catch litterers and pooper scooper [...
IT infrastructure - think disaster prevention, not disaster recovery
Posted on October 08, 2008That’s the title of my weekly Slaw post. It is reproduced here: That was the message delivered last night by Steve Spencer of Digital Fortress Corporation at the monthly Internetwork meeting. He makes a good point. Many people think about disaster recovery when dealing with business continuity plans...
U.S. court decision big win for consumers
Posted on October 06, 2008For the London Free Press - October 6, 2008 Read this on Canoe In a major victory for American consumers, the Washington state Supreme Court, following in the footsteps of Ontario consumer protection laws, has held AT&T cannot remove a consumer’s right to file a class-action lawsuit...
Want something to do this weekend? - sign up on the Do Not Call list
Posted on October 03, 2008The Canadian Do Not Call registry went live this week - and was so popular it had trouble coping with the volumes. So if you want to cut down (note I said cut down, not eliminate - there are many exceptions), take a few minutes this weekend to sign up...
Cloud computing controversy
Posted on October 01, 2008That’s the title of my post on Slaw today. It reads as follows: We see the term ?cloud computing? a lot these days. Its a term that?s hard to define - like Web 2.0. It essentially means having your software work ?out there? somewhere, and/or your data reside ?out there? somewhere - rather than on a computer [...
Stallman - Cloud computing is a trap
Posted on September 30, 2008The Guardian published an article entitled Cloud computing is a trap, warns GNU founder Richard Stallman coincidentally on the same day as my Free Press article from yesterday on the topic. Stallman is quoted as bluntly saying: “It’s stupidity...
Cloud computing presents real concerns over privacy issues
Posted on September 29, 2008For the London Free Press - September 29, 2008 Read this on Canoe We are moving into “cloud” computing, where users increasingly rely on data and software residing somewhere out there on the Internet. That means we have little direct knowledge of, involvement with or control over the data or its location...
Britain becoming Orwellian surveillance society
Posted on September 26, 2008Cory Doctorow has a post on Boing Boing entitled Britain will make foreigners carry RFID identity cards and will put us in a huge, Orwellian database: the rest of Britain will be next. Its worth a read. He says in part: My family fled the Soviet Union after the war...
Today is World Day Against Software Patents
Posted on September 24, 2008From my post to Slaw today: Slashdot reports that today has been declared World Day Against Software Patents by the European based Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure They believe that software patents impede innovation and investment. So depending on what side of this debate one falls on, feel free to either celebrate and promote it, or cringe [...
Privacy as a filter failure
Posted on September 23, 2008There is a video of Clay Shirky giving a presentation entitled It’s Not Information Overload. It’s Filter Failure (ht @JDTwitt from Twitter) . The part I found most interesting starts around the 12 minute mark, where he talks about privacy...
London needs a Performing Arts Centre ? Now
Posted on September 22, 2008London needs a proper performing arts centre. We need to get on with it and get it done. The City’s decision of a few months ago not to fund a study was disappointing. A debate about whether the proposed study had the right focus, or whether it covered ground already looked at would have been healthy...
Wikipedia uses me as a source - reliable?
Posted on September 18, 2008I just noticed that the Wikipedia entry on the Streisand Effect links to a London Free Press article I wrote on the subject as the first footnote. So does this advance the notion that Wikipedia is unreliable because it uses dubious sources, or the notion that it is reliable because it uses authoritative sources? I’m not [...
Yet another attempt at DRM
Posted on September 17, 2008That’s the title of my weekly Slaw post today. It says: There have been a few articles recently talking about a new proposed method of digital rights management called Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem. The idea is to control what we do with video purchased online, and allow us to use it on multiple devices...
London Biotech week - Sept 22-26
Posted on September 16, 2008The London TechAlliance is having its annual biotech week next week. Check out their calendar for the various events. One of the events that might be of interest to any tech business, not just biotech, is a seminar on Sept 24 entitled “Accelerate London Business Seminar”...
Ruling favours copyright holders
Posted on September 15, 2008For the London Free Press - September 15, 2008 Read this on Canoe A recent U.S. Federal Appeals Court ruling has found that copyright laws apply to free software licences. The Court in Jacobson versus Katzer held that copyright holders “who engage in open-source licensing have the right to control the modification and distribution of copyrighted material...
Oct 11 is international day of protest against surveillance
Posted on September 10, 2008That’s the title of my Slaw post today. It reads: Boing Boing has a recent post that refers to a day of protest being organized in the EU. Some excerpts: An international protest against undue surveillance is being held next month on the 11th of October...
Google reduces personal info retention times
Posted on September 09, 2008David Fraser points out that Google has announced that they are reducing the time before they anonymize IP addresses on their server logs from 18 months to 9 months. That’s in reponse to privacy regulators. Google’s blog entry on the point is a good read as it discusses the trade-off’s between privacy and the advantages they [...
Who owns your Facebook friends?
Posted on September 08, 2008For the London Free Press - September 8, 2008 Read this on Canoe A U.K. court recently ordered an ex-employee of a recruitment firm to disclose details of his profile, business contacts and e-mails at his social networking site, LinkedIn, to his former employer...
Support fair copyright - buy a T-shirt
Posted on June 25, 2008Fair Copyright fo Canada has launched a line of apparel, mugs, buttons, etc to promote their cause - ie the fight against bill C-61. One of the reasons this is noteworthy is that it is another use of a Web...
Support Fair Copyright for Canada - buy a T-shirt
Posted on June 25, 2008Fair Copyright fo Canada has launched a line of apparel, mugs, buttons, etc to promote their cause - ie the fight against bill C-61. One of the reasons this is noteworthy is that it is another use of a Web...
Everyone has a role to play regarding privacy
Posted on June 24, 2008David Fraser has 2 posts on his Canadian Privacy Law Blog that together emphasize that to be effective, an organization's privacy officer must have support at the highest levels of the organization, and must be able to influence various areas...
Copyright amendment bill draws fire
Posted on June 23, 2008For the London Free Press - June 23, 2008 Read this on Canoe On June 12, the federal government introduced Bill C-61, an Act to Amend the Copyright Act. A hailstorm of critical comment followed within hours. This bill amends...
Copyright bill - examples to show it is flawed
Posted on June 18, 2008If anyone is wondering what the fuss is all about over bill C-61, its worth taking a look at Michael's series of posts entitled A Week in the Life of the Canadian DMCA.. The posts describe activities that we all...
Privacy laws not absolute
Posted on June 16, 2008For the London Free Press - June 16, 2008 Read this on Canoe Ontario information and privacy commissioner Anne Cavoukian has expressed concern for the tainted image of privacy laws in Canada. In her 2007 annual report, available at www.ipc.on.ca,...
C-61 Copyright bill results in storm of criticism
Posted on June 13, 2008The press and blogosphere has been all over yesterday's introduction of the copyright bill. The vast majority of the comments are negative, and rightly so. I don't recall ever seeing so much commentary on legislation so quickly - it hasn't...
The paperless office
Posted on June 12, 2008Slaw.ca posted a good article recently entitled Revisiting the Paperlesss Office that contains some history on the topic, and some tips for reducing paper. It comments that we have the technology and tools to do it - what we need...
Tips to avoid identity theft and fraud
Posted on June 11, 2008Inside CRM has an article entitled 50 Ways to Take Back Control of Your Personal Data that is a good list of best practices to protect personal information. Many of the references contain details relevant only to those that live...
Online sales still mostly off
Posted on June 09, 2008For the London Free Press - June 9, 2008 Read this on Canoe New figures released by Statistics Canada reveal a lack of response from public- and private-sector enterprises to the increasing demands for electronic commerce and technology. The figures....
Be careful with GPL3 software
Posted on June 04, 2008Law.com has an article entitled Open Source Software Shows Its Muscle that talks about the perils of using open source software that uses the GPL3 license. If one just uses some open source software with the GPL3 license on its...
'Spare time' phenomenon being transformed - Cognitive Surplus
Posted on June 02, 2008For the London Free Press - June 2, 2008 Read this on Canoe Check out the video A common refrain when talking about people contributing to online pursuits such as writing Wikipedia articles is, "Where do people find the time?"...
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement opposition grows
Posted on May 30, 2008The more I read about this, and the ramifications sink in, the less I like it. The combination of the expected copyright reform bill and this proposed treaty leads us down the wrong path. Its a backwards step and out...
Olympic tickets to contain personal information
Posted on May 29, 2008Apparently the tickets for this summer's Olympics will contain a microchip with the ticket holder's photograph, passport details, addresses, e-mail, and telephone numbers. The idea is to keep troublemakers and protestors out of the stands. Of course this raises issues...
Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement controversy
Posted on May 28, 2008Several blogs and newspaper articles have mentioned a leaked document that describes the ACTA negoitiations. It is a proposed treaty among a few countries to help stem the flow of counterfeit goods at borders. The proposed treaty and the way...
Net Neutrality rally today on Parliament Hill
Posted on May 27, 2008There will be a rally today on Parliament Hill in Ottawa from 11:30 to 1:30 to support net neutrality. For more details see: netneutralityrally.ca neutrality.ca Campaign for Democratic Media...
Future of online legacy upon death a new issue
Posted on May 26, 2008For the London Free Press - May 26, 2008 Read this on Canoe A new aspect of estate planning has arisen with the advance of the Internet -- the preservation of one's online legacy. It's no longer as simple as...
Ontario Privacy Commissioner releases 2007 annual report
Posted on May 22, 2008Ann Cavoukian just released her 2007 annual report, a 76 page report including statistics on complaints and information requests, significant cases, and her views on some important issues going forward. David Fraser summarizes it by saying "apparently it was a...
The ingenuity gap / climate change / peak oil
Posted on May 21, 2008Just attended the London TechAlliance AGM, which featured Dr. Thomas Homer-Dixon as the speaker. He presented a rather sobering view of the severity of the problems of climate change, carbon emissions, and peak oil. His message for solving these is...
CRTC to look into broadcasting and new media
Posted on May 16, 2008The CRTC just announced that they will be having a public hearing in early 2009 about broadcasting and the new media environment. The CRTC regulates traditional broadcasters. In 1999 the CRTC decided that it would not deal with the internet....
CRTC throttling / network neutrality submissions
Posted on May 15, 2008The CRTC refused to grant CAIP's (Canadian Association of Internet Providers) requested interim injunction to stop Bell's throttling of internet traffic, but has published a plan to consider the issue in detail. Anyone concerned about this issue has until Jun...
Copyright law update update
Posted on May 14, 2008Michael Geist says the Ottawa rumour mill indicates that we might see a copyright reform bill soon. His article is worth a read to find out why "the decision to forge ahead with the controversial reform package is a curious...
texting vs Hubble data
Posted on May 13, 2008Boing Boing has a link to an article that says a UK scientist did the math and says that it costs 4 times as much to send text messages over a cell phone then it does to transmit data from...
Provincial often beats federal
Posted on May 12, 2008For the London Free Press - May 12, 2008 Read this on Canoe Many people presume it is better to incorporate a new business as a federal corporation rather than an Ontario corporation. But an Ontario corporation is usually the...
Canada - iPhone & behind the curve wireless
Posted on May 08, 2008I've commented before about how frustrating it is to see that Canada's wireless prices are higher than other countries, and that our devices and services lag other countries. I use an HTC Windows mobile smartphone, and while its a great...
Social Media as a Business Tool
Posted on May 07, 2008That's the title of a presentation I gave last night at an Internetwork London meeting. (It's a monthly networking event for people with an interest in tech in London, Ontario.) My powerpoint slides are attached, although they do seem to...
CCTV's don't fight crime? - just add more!
Posted on May 06, 2008As a follow up to my article yesterday about security theatre, Boing Boing has a post today entitled CCTVs don't solve crime in UK; Scotland Yard's answer: more CCTVs!. Read the Boing Boing post...
U.K. anti-photo campaign merely security theatre
Posted on May 05, 2008For the London Free Press - May 5, 2008 Read this on Canoe The United Kingdom recently launched a new campaign against terrorists that targets photographers. It is ironic that in perhaps the most-surveilled country in the world -- with...
Congratulations to Amabile
Posted on May 01, 2008Congratulations to London's Amabile Primus and Young Men's choirs (and my son Kyle who is in the Young Men's choir) for both placing first in their respective classes this week in the CBC national Choral 2008 competition. Both choirs will...
Privacy as a bad excuse
Posted on April 30, 2008There have been a few incidents where public officials have claimed privacy laws prevented them from disclosing information in emergency situations. The reality is privacy laws have exceptions that allow disclosure of personal information in emergency situations or where there...
Copyright issues abound
Posted on April 29, 2008Copyright issues in Canada continue to get interesting, and attract more attention and input than ever before. Anyone interested in the topic should follow the RSS feeds of Michael Geist's blog, and Howard Knopf's blog. I tend to agree with...
Scams haul in $450 million
Posted on April 28, 2008For the London Free Press - April 28, 2008 Read this on Canoe Fraud affects business as well as individuals. An Environics survey commissioned for the Competition Bureau of Canada revealed that Canadians lost more than $450 million to mass-marketing....
privacy enhancing technologies - a 2 edged sword
Posted on April 25, 2008David Fraser has a post entitled The irony of privacy enhancing technologies. That refers to technologies that, for example, mask people's identities when caught on video. The ironic part, as David rightly points out, is that one aspect of privacy...
ISP's shouldn't be obligated to police the net
Posted on April 22, 2008Michael Geist's article in yesterday's Star is worth a read. Michael talks about the second thoughts various governments are having to proposals (called the "three strikes" or "graduated response" policy) that would have ISP's terminate subscribers for repeated file sharing...
Craigslist deemed Internet service
Posted on April 21, 2008For the London Free Press - April 21, 2008 Read this on Canoe A recent court of appeal ruling found that Craigslist -- a popular venue which provides an electronic forum for those who want to buy, sell or rent...
Cable manufacturer strikes back at Monster IP claim
Posted on April 16, 2008The Blue Jeans cable president's response to a Monster Cable cease and desist letter has been getting a lot of attention in the blogosphere. Seems that Monster Cable sent Blue Jeans cable a letter alleging that Blue Jeans cable designs...
UK police don't like being watched
Posted on April 15, 2008David Fraser points to an article that says the London England police are about to be tracked so their supervisors know where they are at all times. The police officers don't like been tracked, though, as it has an element...
Personal expression can lead to trouble
Posted on April 14, 2008For the London Free Press - April 14, 2008 Read this on Canoe Facebook, blogs and other social media have made everyone a publisher. Anyone can post their thoughts for the world to see. But a recent criminal prosecution over...
Google request - current, hi-res images for London Ontario
Posted on April 09, 2008The Google maps images for the London area are out of date and lo-res. Someone commented recently that Google finally added hi-res images. But it seems that while Google Earth images of London are hi-res, Google map images are not....
Your thoughts - the next privacy frontier?
Posted on April 08, 2008This month's Wired magazine has a thought provoking article about how emerging technologies dealing with our minds will create new privacy and ethical issues. It asks the question: do we have a right to mental privacy? The article states: We...
Website thwarts exempt telemarketers
Posted on April 07, 2008For the London Free Press - April 7, 2008 Read this on Canoe A new website has been created to fill in the gaps in the upcoming do-not-call telephone number registry. Canadians can register at ioptout.ca, choose the entities from...
IT Week a success
Posted on April 04, 2008TechAlliance's IT Week wrapped up last night with a community mixer. All the events were well attended. Two things stand out in my mind. First, London IT companies are doing a much better job of letting the community know about...
Canton?s recipe for disastrous laws
Posted on April 03, 20081. Take some behavior/activity that most would agree is wrong (aka the ?evil") 2. Someone says "we need a law to stop the evil". 3. Someone drafts a law with no rational thought or research into: (a) whether it will...
Warrantless request for ISP subscriber unlawful?
Posted on April 02, 2008David Fraser talks about an unpublished case that said evidence obtained about a subscriber without a warrant from an Internet Service Provider is unlawfully obtained. As David points out, it is unclear under PIPEDA whether a warrant is required for....
Tracking dots raise privacy concerns
Posted on March 31, 2008For the London Free Press - March 31, 2008 Read this on Canoe Though used for years, microscopic yellow tracking dots created by some colour laser printers have recently raised privacy concerns with the European Commission. The European Commission is...
Network Neutrality - traffic shaping - throttling
Posted on March 27, 2008The issue of network neutrality has been simmering for a while in Canada, but as Michael Geist points out, recent events may bring more attention to this issue. In particular, Bell's traffic shaping policies. This issue has the potential to...
Are blogging policies necessary?
Posted on March 26, 2008Kevin O'Keefe's Real Lawyers Have Blogs has a post about whether organizations should have blogging policies. It as attracted a few comments, including one from me. My position is that it is a good idea for organizations to have a...
Canadian business opportunity
Posted on March 25, 2008The globe and Mail had an article yesterday entitled Patriot Act haunts Google service that talked about a risk of using cloud based web tools. Google, and others, offer tools ranging from storage space to blogging tools to wikis to...
Second IT Week packed with activities
Posted on March 24, 2008For the London Free Press - March 24, 2008 Read this on Canoe TechAlliance's second annual IT Week, IT Lives in London, starts March 31. The week has several events that will be of interest to those in the tech...
Congratulations to the winners of the London Chamber of Commerce Business Achievement Awards
Posted on March 20, 2008The awards were announced last night at an event with an audience of over 1200 people. The winners are: Business of the Year (Small) Big Blue Bubble Business of the Year (Large) Trojan Technologies Global Traders Market Expansion StarTech.com Excellence...
Hannaford data breach - almost 2000 cases of fraud reported
Posted on March 18, 2008Many sources are reporting on a data breach in the US Hannaford retail chain where customer credit and debit card numbers were exposed by some sort of intrusion into their computer systems. Unfortunately, this kind of report is all too...
Consumer software licences under fire
Posted on March 17, 2008For the London Free Press - March 17, 2008 Read this on Canoe In the United Kingdom, the National Consumer Council recently filed a complaint with the Office of Fair Trading stating that consumer software licences contain an imbalance of...
Celebrate Pi day today
Posted on March 14, 2008I almost forgot - today is Pi day, because it is March 14, or 3.14. If you want to be more precise, Pi second comes this afternoon at 1:59.26 (3.1415926). I suppose we could honour that 24 times today -...
Let My Video Go
Posted on March 14, 2008That's the title of an article in this month's Wired magazine. Its an article that those interested in the copyright debate should take a look at. The article basically makes the argument that the music industry blew it by trying...
Canadian Lawyer In-house article on cybersmearing
Posted on March 13, 2008The February edition of Canadian Lawyer In-house magazine has a good article on cybersmearing, and how business should react to it. I'm quoted in the article. I was also quoted in an article in an article on virtual worlds in...
Luminaries of the Canadian blawgosphere
Posted on March 12, 2008Thanks to Canadian Lawyer magazine for including me in their list of top 10 law related blogs in their March edition. Read the Luminaries of the Canadian blawgosphere article See page 24 Go to the Canadian Lawyer web site...
Greenspan - TTC camera surveillance flawed
Posted on March 11, 2008Edward Greenspan wrote a piece that appeared in several Sun newspapers yesterday about the plan to instal cameras on the TTC and the privacy comissioner's approval and conditions. Its worth a read as he takes the position that: Video cameras...
Information stewardship still open to breaches
Posted on March 10, 2008For the London Free Press - March 10, 2008 Read this on Canoe There is a troubling worldwide trend to increased government surveillance and collection of personal information on individuals. Does it enhance public safety and law enforcement or is...
Privacy commissioners release video surveillance guidelines
Posted on March 07, 2008David Fraser points out that the Federal, British Columbia, and Alberta privacy commissioners have just released new guidelines for private sector video surveillance. This is hot on the heels of the Ontario Privacy Commissioner's thoughts on public sector surveillance in...
Get Your Business Online!
Posted on March 04, 2008That's the title of a seminar I spoke at today for the London Small Business Centre. Jayme Cousins of In House Logic talked about how to develop a web presence. David Ciccerelli of Voices.com talked about search engine optimization and...
File-sharing programs allow breaches
Posted on March 03, 2008For the London Free Press - March 3, 2008 Read this on Canoe File-sharing programs are being installed on personal computers both in the home and at the office. A recent incident in Newfoundland involving the file-sharing program Limewire on...
London's 2nd annual IT Week is coming March 31
Posted on February 26, 2008TechAlliance has announced the events for IT Week. Last Year's events were a great success - enough so that TechAlliance has to have one of the events in a larger venue this year. The week has several events that will...
Moves on to sour domain tasting
Posted on February 25, 2008For the London Free Press - February 25, 2008 Read this on Canoe If you've never heard of domain tasting, you're not alone. To many looking to obtain Internet domain names, however, it's a serious problem that is finally being...
Is file sharing theft?
Posted on February 21, 2008Mike Masnick of Techdirt has a post worth reading for anyone interested in copyright issues. The entertainment industry always equates file sharing with the theft of physical property, and takes the position that copies not explicitly authorized by the creator...
IOC dragged into the '90's on blogging
Posted on February 20, 2008While I do have some sympathy for the IOC's desire to maximize TV revenue from the Olympic games, the IOC always strikes me as being about a decade behind in their rules about things like event video on Web sites,...
Free downloading has privacy catches
Posted on February 19, 2008For the London Free Press - February 18, 2008 Read this on Canoe A company called QTrax recently announced it had arrangements with major labels to allow free music downloading. The labels would make their money from ad revenue --...
Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright doesn't want Canadian DMCA
Posted on February 14, 2008Michael Geist has a post about a new coalition that has written a position paper against the proposed Canadian copyright reform bill. The list of members is impressive, including Canada's largest cable companies, retailers, broadcasters, Internet companies, and most of...
Act blocks Olympic ambushes
Posted on February 11, 2008For the London Free Press - February 11, 2008 Read this on Canoe In preparation for the 2010 Winter Olympics, Bill C-47, the Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act came into force on Dec. 17. The Act protects the Olympic brand....
The million dollar "s"
Posted on February 07, 2008Cnet reports that: A British travel company has paid $1.1 million for the domain name cruises.co.uk, a price that is effectively $1 million just for the letter "s" since it already owns the address cruise.co.uk. Read the CNet article...
Do-not-call list won't bar everyone
Posted on February 04, 2008For the London Free Press - Febrary 4, 2008 Read this on Canoe Canada's do-not-call list for telemarketers is to be in place by Sept. 30. Don't expect the phone to stop ringing at dinner time, though, because the legislation...
security & privacy - not a zero sum game
Posted on February 01, 2008Privacy is often diminished or downplayed when people are lead to believe that privacy and security cannot exist together. Privacy concerns are often portrayed as anti law and order, or pro-criminal/terrorist. The reality is that we do not have to...
Illicit trade-mark fee solicitations
Posted on January 30, 2008I often get calls from clients I am registering trade-marks for asking me if an invoice they have received is legitimate. These are so common that CIPO (Canadian Intellectual Property Office) prints a warning on their trade-mark approval notices that...
QTrax raises privacy issues
Posted on January 29, 2008There has been a huge controversy over the last day or so regarding the QTrax announcement that it has deals with major labels to allow free music downloads. The catch was that those deals areapparently not in place yet. There...
Opposition grows to proposed copyright law
Posted on January 28, 2008For the London Free Press - January 28, 2008 Read this on Canoe At the end of 2007 the Canadian government stood poised to introduce a new copyright law that many feared would amount to a sell-out to the demands...
DDoS attacks on Scientology
Posted on January 25, 2008Th Register has an article with details about an attack on the church of Scientology by a group calling itself Anonymous. The attack apparently consists of not only a ddos (distributed denial of service) attack on their web site, but...
DC government employees fired for viewing porn at work
Posted on January 24, 2008The Washington Post has an article that says 9 employees were fired, and many more sent warnings and reprimands. They had clicked on the sites thousands of times per year. There was a policy in place that prohibited such conduct....
How to avoid buying new stuff
Posted on January 22, 2008Lifehacker points to an amusing post on the Put Things Off blog that bills itself as The laid-back prodcutivity blog. entitled Think Different ? Buy a Bigger Envelope!, subtitled How to Tell if You Really Need New Hardware. Its a...
Tort of Invasion of Privacy in Ontario
Posted on January 22, 2008A recent article in the Canadian Privacy Law Review entitled Tort of Invasion of Privacy Recognized in Ontario talks about a case where a court awarded damages for breach of privacy. (Caltagirone v Scozzari-Cloutier) To put it in perspective though,....
Establish ownership of intellectual goods before creation
Posted on January 21, 2008for the London Free Press - January 21, 2008 Read this on Canoe The failure to document the ownership of intellectual property is one of the most common mistakes made by organizations. It can be difficult to correct after the...
Fair copyright principles
Posted on January 18, 2008Michael Geist has published a post entitled Fair Copyright for Canada Principles that summarizes what he thinks fair copyright reform looks like. The list is a good read for anyone trying to understand the issues. Read Michael's post...
Apple Macworld thoughts
Posted on January 16, 2008Steve Jobs' "reality distortion field" was in full force at yesterday's MacWorld. Even if one is not an Apple fan, or does not use any Apple products, you have to admire the way they design, announce, and sell their products....
Is secret favouritism ruining Net?
Posted on January 14, 2008For the London Free Press - January 14, 2008 Read this on Canoe Net neutrality is a topic that continues to simmer and remain a going concern for some Internet activists, while for others, including Internet service providers (ISPs), it's...
Fair Copyright For Canada - local groups
Posted on January 10, 2008Between Christmas holidays and access problems caused by moving the blog to a new server resulting in firewall problems, I haven't posted much lately. For those interested in copyright reform and the expected copyright bill, check out and join the...
Prediction: Copyright reform a hot button
Posted on January 07, 2008For the London Free Press Read this on Canoe For this first column of 2008, I will hazard some predictions for the coming year. The upcoming copyright reform bill will cause some heated debates. Expectations are that the bill will...
Happy Holidays
Posted on December 20, 2007The above image from our HP firm card is subject to copyright - not to be reproduced...
Nothing illegal about leaking sales on Net
Posted on December 17, 2007For the London Free Press - Dec 17, 2007 Read this on Canoe The early publication of sales flyer pricing deals by websites has resulted in legal controversy. Some retailers don't like it when their deals for days such as...
Copyright bill delayed
Posted on December 15, 2007I have been remiss in not posting on the delay in the Copyright bill. (My blog has been moved to a new server, which has resulted in some temporary internal access issues.) For those of you who have not been...
If I was in Charge...
Posted on December 13, 2007Maybe I just need a break (I'm glad the Christmas holidays are coming), but a few things have been bugging me lately. So here goes my miscellaneous rant. There would be no Canadian DMCA, ie no legal protection for DRM,...
Privacy protection should be stressed
Posted on December 10, 2007For the London Free Press - December 10, 2007 Read this on Canoe Many serious leaks of personal information result not from the lack of policies and procedures to prevent it, but from the carelessness or lack of thought or...
Copyright reform anticipated to be worse than expected
Posted on December 07, 2007Michael points out that it looks like the things we shouldn't have in copyright reform will be intoduced in the upcoming bill, but the things we should have are being deferred for years for further study. Lets hope the continued...
Data breach leads to card company demise
Posted on December 06, 2007David Fraser points to an article saying that credit-card processor CardSystems Solutions Inc. has filed for bankruptcy protection. Seems that its demise can be traced back to a hacker's theft of personal information from its systems. Privacy advocates often talk...
UK ISP explains its traffic shaping/net neutrality approach
Posted on December 04, 2007Techdirt posts about how one UK ISP is very open about how and why it traffic shapes. One issue in the net neutrality debate (the fear that ISP's will prioritize/degrade certain traffic based on their desire to promote certain services...
Identity theft bill will help in battle
Posted on December 03, 2007For the London Free Press - December 3, 2007 Read this on Canoe The federal government just introduced proposed amendments to the Criminal Code to provide more tools to fight identity theft. This bill is a welcome addition to fight...
Today is Computer Security Day
Posted on November 30, 2007Outlaw.com points out that today is the 9th annual Computer Security Day. Of course, every day should be computer security day. The Computer Security Day web site has a list of things you can do to increase and promote security....
More on copyright reform
Posted on November 28, 2007Michael Geist has a post that is a good, short summary of what is expected in the pending Canadian copyright reform bill, and why the anticipated approach is wrong. Only time will tell what the actual bill will look like....
Reckless data handling & new identity theft law
Posted on November 27, 2007itWorldCanada has an article today about the part of the proposed identity theft law that would make it a crime to be "reckless" about making personal information available to one who intends to use it for fraud. I am quoted...
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