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Government Commits to Withdrawing Lobby Spyware Changes

Bill C-27, the anti-spam bill, is nearly through the Industry Committee with a limited number of changes.  The Liberals have already stated that they would not be bringing forward the amendments promoted by the copyright lobby that would have permitted unauthorized access to personal computers in some situations.  The same issue arose during Question Period in the House of Commons on Thursday.  When asked about it by NDP MP Brian Masse, Industry Minister Tony Clement confirmed that the Conservatives would not bring forward a similar motion.

At Wednesday's hearing, there were a couple of changes instigated by Bloc. First, a specific exception for political parties was inserted into the bill.  This is arguably unnecessary since the bill only covers commercial activity.  Second, the Bloc succeeded in extending the period of a business relationship from 18 months to two years.  The clause-by-clause review should conclude on Monday.

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4 Comments

  1. Devil's Advocate says:

    Exceptions, exceptions…
    What’s with our government? They can’t just look at it from a normal perspective – always having to find these ridiculous exceptions.

    I was wondering when we’d finally end up with the exception for “political parties”. This one always seems to come into it. It’s not only “unnecessary” – it’s disingenuous to the idea of the bill itself, and to the People.

    As to extending the “business relationship” clause, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at that one either. But I can’t see why such a clause should even be considered. “Spam” is really a classification the Recipient should be able to make, regardless of any existing relationship. (Nobody can tell me they’ve never received spam from even those they’ve known personally for a long time.)

  2. More reasons to use disposable email addresses or at least change your profile to a fake email address when you are about to end a business relationship.

    There are tons of these available.

  3. VancouverDave says:

    Same old story
    Someone always has to spoil things for everyone.

  4. I wonder why the entertainment lobby would be taken seriously on their little amendments in the first place after the Sony rootkit fiasco.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_CD_copy_protection_scandal

    We need to send this lobby packing. The entertainment lobby has already made a mess out of copyright. I think government needs to not trust this lobby so much and look at the facts. I’m glad that prevailed here. I guess we know what side the liberals have taken with respect to this lobby. Wouldn’t surprise me one bit that over the past 6 months, Liberal MP’s have been getting a lot of “lobby” support when Iggy came about. I guess they weren’t banking on him bombing out so bad (worse the Dion) in public support for the party. Probably not as much as Clement got from this lobby for that Toronto Copyright Town Hall meeting though.