Post Tagged with: "Task Force"

Industry Minister Should Put Spam Law Back on Agenda

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) highlights the failure of the Canadian government to follow through on a task force report that recommended new anti-spam legislation.  Industry Minister Bernier was recently asked about his efforts in combating spam, an ongoing nuisance that costs Canadian business millions of dollars while harming the consumer confidence needed to support emerging businesses.  Bernier indicated that he had just received the 2005 National Task Force on Spam report (I was a member of the task force) and would respond to its recommendations in the coming weeks. 

While he acknowledged that a "big group of experts" had called on the government to do something, he seemed to foreshadow a rejection of the Task Force's legislative recommendations, commenting that "the question is, what can we do? And I'm not sure right now. Maybe the market will decide in the end."  I argue that should the Minister take the time to carefully read the report, he will find that a broad cross-section of Canadians representing Internet service providers, marketers, and the public, do not share his doubts about the role of government. 

Moreover, the Minister's claim that he only recently received the Task Force report is contradicted by documents recently obtained under the Access to Information Act.  They reveal that just days after Bernier was sworn in as Canada’s Industry Minister, department officials delivered a briefing titled "Building Business Confidence and Consumer Trust Online."

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September 25, 2006 3 comments Columns

Industry Minister Should Put Spam Law Back on the Agenda

Appeared in the Toronto Star on September 25, 2006 as As Spam Flow Grows, Harper Government Sleeps [http://geistcanadaspamagenda.notlong.com]  Earlier this month Industry Minister Maxime Bernier traveled to Saskatoon to deliver the keynote address at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Meeting.   Bernier's speech focused on the value of entrepreneurialism and […]

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September 25, 2006 1 comment Columns Archive

Spam Not Gone, But Increasingly Forgotten

My weekly Law Bytes column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) takes stock of the battle against spam one year after Canada’s National Task Force on Spam submitted its report. The column notes that while filtering has become more effective, first impressions can be deceiving.  Global spam volume continues to increase, with recent surveys indicating that 80 percent of all e-mail is now spam.  Spam has also become far more dangerous as many messages secretly contain viruses or other hidden programs that can unwittingly turn ordinary Internet users with broadband connections into large-scale spammers.

Unfortunately the Canadian legal framework has failed to keep pace with the new spam-related concerns.

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May 3, 2006 3 comments Columns

Task Force Report a Roadmap for Canning Canadian-Based Spam

Lost amidst the high drama on Parliament Hill last week was the release of Stopping Spam, the National Task Force on Spam’s final report.

Given that I was a member of the Task Force I’m biased, but I sincerely think the report provides a valuable contribution to the fight against spam in Canada and it would be shame if it were to get lost in the shuffle.

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May 23, 2005 Comments are Disabled Columns
Spam Task Force Delivers Report to Government

Spam Task Force Delivers Report to Government

Canada’s national spam task force today delivered its report to Industry Minister David Emerson. I was a member of the task force and served as the co-chair of the law and regulatory working group.

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May 17, 2005 Comments are Disabled Uncategorized