Amazon.ca is now well-entrenched in the Canadian e-commerce landscape and seeks to create its own Canadian distribution channel.  The plan requires government approval, which recently led to predictable outcries from the Canadian Booksellers Association.  The CBA wrote to Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore - who must decide the issue - to urge him to reject Amazon’s application.  

It argued that Amazon’s entry would "detrimentally affect independent businesses and would raise serious concerns over the protection of our cultural industries. Individual Canadian booksellers have traditionally played a key role in ensuring the promotion of Canadian authors and Canadian culture. These are values that no American dot.com retailer could ever purport to understand or promote."

The CBA’s attempt to cloak the issue as a matter of Canadian culture is unsurprising, but Moore should recognize this for what it is - a transparent attempt to hamstring a tough competitor that ultimately hurts the Canadian culture sector.

Evidence of the benefits of major retailers to Canadian culture comes directly from a 2007 Turner-Riggs report commissioned by Canadian Heritage on the Canadian book retail sector.  It pointed to a Quill & Quire study that found that consumers were far more likely to find Canadian titles in the large chains than in smaller independent stores.  

Moreover, a second study of sales from eleven small Canadian literary presses found that online sellers represented the largest source of sales growth, while both chain and independent booksellers experienced relatively static sales.

Neither of these findings should come as much of a surprise.  The scarcity of space in brick and mortar bookstores has long been a key concern for Canadian authors and publishers, who fear that their titles might get squeezed off the shelves.  

Big chain retailers alleviated those concerns to some degree by offering up far more space for titles of all origins (though at a cost of greater reliance on those chains and a weaker bargaining position on commercial terms). Online sellers such as Amazon removed the scarcity concerns altogether, since the number of books the company can offer is unlimited.  

That undoubtedly means more competition, yet it also ensures that fears consumers will be unable to access Canadian titles have disappeared.  Indeed, the report concludes "the visibility of Canadian titles - and Canadians' access to them - in online book retail rose significantly with the launch of Amazon.ca and its considerable selection of Canadian- sourced inventory."

In 2000, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage conducted hearings on the Canadian book market.  The resulting report - The Challenge of Change: A Consideration of the Canadian Book Industry - recommended that the government "ensure that no foreign investor is allowed to take over a Canadian firm in the book industry unless credible assurances are made that the investment will increase the availability of Canadian-authored books."

The experience of the past decade has demonstrated that greater retail competition does increase the availability of Canadian books. While the book industry may still require support to bring Canadian books to market, restrictions on who may sell or distribute those books represent a harmful barrier from a bygone era.

Democracy depends upon a fair, accurate, and transparent electoral process with outcomes that can be independently verified.  Conventional voting accomplishes many of these goals – private polling stations enable citizens to cast their votes anonymously, election day scrutineers offer independent oversight, and paper-based ballots provide a verifiable outcome that can be re-counted if necessary.

While technology may someday allow us to replicate these essential features online, many of them are currently absent from Internet voting, which is subject to any number of possible disruptions.  These include denial of service attacks that shut down the election process, counterfeit websites, phishing attacks, hacks into the election system, or the insertion of computer viruses that tamper with election results.

These concerns are based on real-world experience.  The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the organization that administers the domain name system, ran an online board of director election in 2000.  The experience was fraught with technical difficulties, leading a reviewer to conclude "the technical weakness in the registration system made it virtually impossible to assess the integrity of the voters' list, the security of the PINs, and secrecy of vote."

More recently, the Netherlands used Internet voting as part of its 2006 parliamentary elections.  The online option was an alternative for Dutch citizens working or living abroad.  Nearly 20,000 valid Internet votes were received at a cost of approximately 90 euros per Internet voter.  Two years later, the country implemented a ban on Internet voting.

The Canadian experience is limited primarily to municipal elections.  Several Ontario municipalities have offered Internet-based voting, enabling local residents to vote without leaving their homes.  Residents were required to pre-register for Internet voting and were provided with detailed instructions on the technical requirements to "vote anywhere."

Caution on Internet voting appears prudent, since experts have identified a long and costly list of necessary precautions, including random spot checks and post-vote verification programs to preserve anonymity.  Given the security risks, opening the door to provincial or federal Internet voting seems premature.  In the zeal to increase voter turnout, the reliance on Internet voting could inadvertently place the validity of the election process at risk.

On the legislative front, Clement should reintroduce the Electronic Commerce Protection Act, the anti-spam bill that passed through the House of Commons and was to have been the subject of Senate hearings earlier this year.  Having received all-party support and extensive study, the legislation should be placed on a rocket docket with a commitment to passing the bill before the summer recess.

Two other long-awaited bills should be part of the short-term digital strategy.  With the national copyright consultation complete, a digital copyright bill consistent with Clement’s commitment to a forward-looking, technology neutral approach should be introduced within the next 100 days.  So, too, should a privacy reform bill, which Clement identified as a priority at the start of 2010.

Beyond new legislation, government can use the next 100 days to lead by example.  A new data.gc.ca website with open government datasets like those found in the U.S. and U.K. should be easy to achieve.  The government also could follow the Australian approach to solve the crown copyright problem that restricts use of government documents by adopting open licences that grant permission to use documents without formal approval (or the need for a new law).  

The government can use the next 100 days to step up its digital enforcement agenda.  This includes ensuring Internet providers are compliant with net neutrality requirements and that telemarketers abide by do-not-call legislation.

Finally, longer-term digital agenda issues must be put on the policy front burner.  These include discussions on spectrum allocation, digital television transition, removal of Canadian control requirements in the telecom sector, and new media issues.

None of these initiatives will mark an immediate resurgence in Canada’s digital ranking.  But after years of missteps, perhaps some baby steps now would put the nation’s digital agenda back on track.

The CCIA represents a who's who of the technology business world, with a membership roster that includes Microsoft, Google, T-Mobile, Fujitsu, AMD, eBay, Intuit, Oracle, and Yahoo.  While critics of Canadian policy might expect these business heavyweights to chime in with their own criticisms, they took the opposite approach. 

Rather than building on the tired narrative that the current law is an embarrassment, the message from the technology world was that Canada is actually doing just fine.  The CCIA warned that including Canada on the list of countries that need reforms undermines the credibility of the process, adding "Canada's current copyright law and practice clearly satisfy the statutory 'adequate and effective' standard. Indeed, in a number respects, Canada's laws are more protective of creators than those of the United States.”

The CCIA based its conclusion on four main criteria.  First, it challenged claims that Canada's delayed implementation of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Internet treaties are grounds for inclusion on the list, stating there is "no basis for USTR to conclude that any country does not provide adequate and effective protection based on non-ratification of any treaty." Moreover, given that the majority of the world has yet to ratify the treaties, the CCIA noted that watch-listing one nation for non-ratification would seem to require watch-listing everyone that finds themselves in the same position.

Second, it disputed the oft-repeated claim that the absence of legal protection for digital locks – known as anti-circumvention legislation - should be the basis for watch-list placement.  In fact, the very companies that are called upon to develop products compliant with digital lock systems argue that "neither Canada nor any other country is required to implement any particular means of preventing copying, and most assuredly not a right once removed from copying: circumventing a technological lock."

Third, the CCIA challenged claims that the Canadian approach to Internet provider liability for alleged infringements of their subscribers is sub-standard when compared to the United States.  The Canadian approach is described as "thoughtful" and "potentially superior" and the submission maintains that using the Special 301 process to pressure other countries to adhere to U.S. standards is inappropriate, emphatically stating that the process "is not a vehicle to remake the world in the image of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act."

Fourth, it reminded officials that Canadian copyright law is more protective of creators than the U.S. in some respects, including the existence of moral rights and the limitations of fair dealing when compared to the U.S. fair use provision.

The defence is precisely the kind of response that Canadian officials should be making when confronted with unfounded claims denigrating the state of Canadian copyright law.  That the world's leading technology companies are speaking out on this issue should send a strong signal to Industry Minister Tony Clement and Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore about how Canadian law is actually viewed by leading companies that sit at the heart of a Canadian digital strategy.

Two of the six providers - Telus and Vidéotron - do not have explicit network management practice disclosures since neither currently uses throttling or traffic shaping technologies that limit the speeds of some applications.  Of the remaining four providers, no one makes it easy to find the disclosures and at least two may not be compliant with the CRTC requirements.

Bell features the most detailed disclosure, providing specific information about its policies and their impact.  While critics may object to the positive spin the company uses to describe limitations on its service, it has done precisely what the CRTC asked.  The Rogers policy is not quite as extensive, yet it also covers much the same terrain, including a description of the policy, the frequency of traffic shaping, and the resulting limitations in their service (including the specific impact on speed).

By contrast, neither Shaw nor Cogeco appear to meet the CRTC requirements.  Shaw's policy, which can be found within its terms of use, does not disclose the actual speeds users encounter when it throttles peer-to-peer activity.  Cogeco, which implausibly claims "customer experience is never affected by the application of [its] measures," similarly does not disclose the speeds that result from its throttling practices.

Not only are two providers arguably failing to meet the transparency requirements, but some traffic management practices may be ripe for complaint.

Telus and Vidéotron once again get a pass, since neither uses throttling technologies, opting instead for economic measures that add additional costs for heavy broadband users.  Shaw's policy also appears compliant with the CRTC minimal harm threshold, since it limits its throttling practices to actual instances of congestion on specific segments of its network.  

Meanwhile, Rogers and Cogeco continuously throttle all upstream P2P traffic. Both providers admit that the limits on their service occur on a 24 hour, 7-day basis, regardless of whether the network is actually experiencing any congestion.  For example, Cogeco claims "it is [our] experience that congestion created by P2P can occur at any time within a 24-hour period."  This may be true, but the failure to limit throttling activities to instances of actual congestion is surely grounds for a CRTC complaint.

While Bell limits its throttling practices to specified periods, its defined period is so broad that it too may be the target of a complaint. Bell discloses that its throttling practices, which target upload and download traffic, runs from 4:30 pm to 2:00 am.  By covering nearly half the day, the company could face questions about whether the policy limits harm as much as reasonably possible.

The CRTC's net neutrality guidelines garnered well-deserved plaudits last year, yet the true test will be whether the guidelines will be enforced effectively.  Last month, the CRTC sent letters to several ISPs - including Shaw, Rogers, Cogeco, and Bell - seeking action.  The ISPs have yet to respond.

The case raised a wide range of legal issues from the impartiality of the proposed arbitration provider (a U.S. firm that had ceased accepting new consumer arbitrations after allegations of "serious impropriety") to the applicability of an Ontario consumer protection statute. But the heart of the case was whether consumers can click away their class action rights when they agree to online contracts mandating that disputes be resolved by arbitration.

The use of such clauses has been commonplace among many businesses that are willing to trade the higher expenses associated with a handful of individual arbitrations for the threat of a big payout in a class action lawsuit.  From businesses' perspective, the math makes sense: class actions hold the prospect of bringing together thousands of aggrieved consumers who may individually receive less, but collectively could cost the company far more.

Although quite common, contracting out of class action rights has long been a source of frustration for consumers and consumer advocates.  Conventional contract analysis posits that businesses and consumers have an equal opportunity to negotiate a satisfactory contract. Yet the practical reality is that online contracts are rarely, if ever, the product of actual negotiation.  Rather, businesses present the lengthy terms and conditions - often buried behind a link or unreadable fine print - and consumers have little choice but to accept if they want the product or service.

The Ontario government recognized the inequity of the business-consumer relationship in 2002, when it enacted the Consumer Protection Act, which outlawed mandatory arbitration clauses in consumer contracts.  The reasoning was simple: individual consumer disputes are rarely financially viable as independent legal actions and only make sense if aggregated as a class action.

Applying the law to Andrews' situation and those similarly facing the Dell arbitration clause, the unanimous court was clearly persuaded that arbitration was not an option, concluding "the choice is not between arbitration and class proceeding; the real choice is between clothing Dell with immunity from liability for defective goods sold to non-consumers and giving those purchasers the same day in court afforded to consumers by way of the class proceeding."

This latest case represents a major win for Canadian consumer groups, who have tangled with Dell before in a case that ultimately went to the Supreme Court of Canada. Businesses operating online may understandably prefer to limit their likely liability through arbitration, but the resounding response from the Ontario legislature and courts indicates that it should not be possible to force consumers to click away their class action rights.

The NFB may never replace YouTube in the minds of most when it comes to Internet video, but a series of innovations have highlighted the benefits of an open distribution model and the potential for Canadian content to reach a global audience online.

Last year, just months before the NFB celebrated its 70th anniversary, it launched the NFB Screening Room, an online portal designed to make its films more readily accessible to Canadians and interested viewers around the world.  To meet its objective, it committed to be as open, transparent, and accessible as possible, including making the films freely available and embeddable on third party websites.

In January 2009, the site started with 500 films.  Today, the number of available films has nearly tripled, with almost 1,500 films, clips, and trailers.  The growing selection has been accompanied by a massive increase in audience. There have been 3.7 million online film views over the past year - 2.2 million from Canada and 1.5 million from the rest of the world.  That number is set to continue to grow as daily views have jumped from 3,000 per day in January 2009 to more than 20,000 film views per day in January 2010.

The site also uses mobile technology to increase public access and exposure to Canadian films.  In October 2009, the NFB launched an iPhone application that has been downloaded more than 170,000 times and led to more than 500,000 film views on the ubiquitous mobile device.

Interestingly, the NFB reports the most popular viewing time is in the evening hours, suggesting that watching a film online is an effective substitute for conventional television programming.   

The NFB also rolled out new participative initiatives.  For example, it launched an "open content" project called GDP, an interactive one-year effort to document the economic crisis. The NFB invited Canadians to submit their own videos discussing the effects of the economic downturn, leading to more than 25 videos along with hundreds of photos and text comments.

The NFB success story is noteworthy for two reasons beyond the impressive statistics.  First, the project is instructive from a public policy perspective.  As the NFB’s content manager recently noted, the Screening Room “puts the films back in front of the people who paid for them in the first place - Canadian taxpayers.” 

That philosophy ought to be emulated by other publicly funded cultural bodies. For example, CBC.ca recently began promoting an online licensing system that charges sites as much as $250 per month to embed a single article on a website.  While the desire for additional revenue is understandable, the goal for a publicly funded body surely must be to make public access the priority, rather than to garner small incremental revenues.

Second, the NFB has demonstrated the potential of the Internet and new media to attract new audiences for Canadian content.  The old regulatory models premised on scarcity that led to Canadian content requirements are disappearing quickly, replaced by a world of abundance in which artificial barriers do little to keep content out. 

As the NFB recognized, remaining relevant in that world requires ensuring your work is accessible as possible. While there are unquestionably risks, there are tremendous potential benefits for Canadian creators and the export of Canadian culture.

Initial government estimates peg the expense to Internet providers alone at as much as 500 million pounds (C$850 million) over ten years.  This includes the costs of identifying subscribers, notifying them of alleged infringements, running call centres to answer questions, and investing in new equipment to manage the system.  As a result, the UK government estimates that 40,000 people could lose Internet access due to anticipated increases in subscriber fees.

The UK recording industry has challenged these numbers, but there is reason to believe they actually understate the actual economic impact. The UK estimates focus exclusively on the Internet provider costs, but provide no accounting for actual enforcement of the system.  When court and regulatory costs are factored into the equation, the taxpayer burden runs into the hundreds of millions.

Moreover, the UK estimates are consistent with a 2006 Industry Canada commissioned study on the costs of Internet provider notification schemes.  The study concluded that the cost of a single notification was $11.73 for larger Internet providers (more than 100,000 subscribers) and $32.73 for smaller Internet providers.  Considering the sheer number of notifications - last summer Bell Canada acknowledged receiving 15,000 notifications each month - the costs quickly run into the millions of dollars.

The disparate impact between big and small Internet providers highlights another hidden cost of three-strikes systems - the negative effect on the competitive landscape for Internet services.  The UK estimates that the costs on small Internet providers are so great that consideration should be given to exempting them entirely, since the additional burden would result in decreased competition.  The same report identifies the disproportionate harm to wireless carriers, who would face massive capital costs and be placed at a competitive disadvantage.

Reducing competition and increasing consumer costs runs counter to Industry Minister Tony Clement's commitment to improving the Canadian competitive environment for wireless and Internet services. Yet the ACTA talks seemingly move in that direction, potentially leading to huge costs for an unproven system that could lead thousands to conclude they can no longer afford access to the Internet.

First, the criticism is particularly surprising since Canada has experienced this form of advocacy before and it has proven effective.  In 2007, the Fair Copyright for Canada group I launched grew to 90,000 members and was credited by some with convincing the government to more carefully examine its proposed bill.  The following year, a group opposing proposed changes to Ontario's rules for young drivers reached 150,000 members and persuaded Premier Dalton McGuinty to drop the amendments.  

Second, anyone who tells you that building a 200,000-person Facebook group is easy has never tried to do it.  Indeed, Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff, Jack Layton, and Gilles Duceppe, the four national party leaders, have less than 100,000 members combined on their respective Facebook pages.  

In fact, much like Facebook, the political parties all make it as easy as possible to become members.  In the case of the Conservative or Liberal Parties, completing a form with just your name and address along with a $10 payment makes you a party member.  Not a particularly onerous burden, yet party membership numbers are regularly trumpeted as evidence of popular support.

Third, attempts to marginalize Facebook users as outside the mainstream is difficult to reconcile with the fact that Canadians are among the most active social network users in the world.  Recent estimates found 42 percent of Canadians have a Facebook account with more than 50 percent under the age of 45 on the social network.

Fourth, the dismissal of social media as a useful tool for rallying support fails to recognize what marketers have long understood - word of mouth from a trusted source is always the most effective means of spreading a message. Political parties invest millions in ad campaigns trying to garner public support, but Facebook advocacy is potentially more effective because it's all about word of mouth.  Joining a group may require little more than a mouse click, but behind that click is a trusted network of friends and colleagues providing their personal recommendation.

Skeptics have pointed to rallies planned for this week as the litmus test for the effectiveness of the anti-proroguing Facebook group.  But with polls finding mounting interest in the issue, the battle has already been won suggesting it is long past time to cast aside doubts about the importance and effectiveness of digital advocacy.

Internet providers frequently are asked to remove content, yet most reputable firms only do so with court oversight or a clear statutory mandate.  One exception to this general rule involves cases of phishing, which is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire personal information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity. This occurs when fraudsters create websites that looks much like a popular bank or online auction site in the hope of prying personal data from visitors tricked into thinking they are dealing with a legitimate site.  

Phishing operators move quickly, seeking to grab as much data as they can before authorities move to shut them down.  The practice raises serious identity theft concerns, leading host ISPs to shut down alleged sites without waiting for a court order.  While this helps limit potential harm, the Canadian government has become the poster child for how the system can be abused.

Within days of the Yes Men incident, both Environment Canada and the Canadian Cyber Incident Response Centre, which is part of Public Safety Canada, wrote to the hosting ISP to ask that it shut down the fake websites. While officials understandably pointed to trademark and copyright concerns (the sites were designed to look confusingly similar to actual government websites), those claims alone would not have been enough for most Internet providers to act.

Instead, officials used both the persuasive power of an official government request combined with inaccurate claims that the sites were engaged in phishing to escalate the issue.  One email to the hosting company noted the request was sent on behalf of the Minister of the Environment to demand prompt deletion and removal of the hosted sites.  The same email claimed the sites were involved in phishing, leading the German-based Internet provider to promptly shut them down.  

In fact, in the rush to shut down the Yes Men sites, the Internet provider simultaneously shut down an additional 4,500 websites hosted at the same IP address.  Those sites have since been restored.

In the aftermath of the case, the web administrator who shut down the sites expressed regret, arguing he acted under duress.  Yet the real concern arises from the inflammatory government claims.  

While the sites were obviously an embarrassment, there were several avenues to address the issue.  Officials could have filed a complaint with the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, which manages the dot-ca domain (both sites used dot-ca addresses).  Alternatively, they could have turned to the courts for an order to either shut down the sites or suspend the domain name registrations.  Instead, the phishing claim effectively substituted one hoax for another and in the process undermined the trust in a global system designed to guard against identity theft.