Legal Commentary

Copyright law update update

Posted on May 14, 2008
Michael 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, 2008
Boing 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, 2008
For 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, 2008
I'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...

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Social Media as a Business Tool

Posted on May 07, 2008
That'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, 2008
As 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, 2008
For 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, 2008
Congratulations 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, 2008
There 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, 2008
Copyright 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, 2008
For 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, 2008
David 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, 2008
Michael 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, 2008
For 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
David 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, 2008
For 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
This 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, 2008
For 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, 2008
TechAlliance'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, 2008
1. 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, 2008
David 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, 2008
For 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
Kevin 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
For 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
Many 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...

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