Columns

Keeping Score of Canada’s Spectrum Auction

Reports indicate that Industry Minister Christian Paradis could unveil the government’s spectrum auction and telecom foreign ownership policies this month. My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) provided a preview of some the key issues. While interest in spectrum auction policy is typically limited to telecom companies and business analysts, all Canadians have a stake in this decision. The available spectrum – known as the 700 MHz spectrum – opens up a host of possibilities for new innovation, competitors, and open Internet access. It is viewed as particularly valuable spectrum since it easily penetrates walls, making it ideal for delivering wireless high-speed Internet services.

Auctioning the spectrum raises a host of critical policy choices.

February 2, 2012 — 15 comments — Columns

The Day the Internet Fought Back

Last week’s Wikipedia-led blackout in protest of U.S. copyright legislation called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is being hailed by some as the Internet Spring, the day that millions fought back against restrictive legislative proposals that posed a serious threat to an open Internet. The protests were derided by critics as a gimmick, but my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes it is hard to see how the SOPA protest can be fairly characterized as anything other than a stunning success. Wikipedia reports that 162 million people viewed its blackout page during the 24-hour protest period. By comparison, the most-watched television program of 2011, the Super Bowl, attracted 111 million viewers.

More impressive were the number of people who took action. Eight million Wikipedia visitors looked up contact information for their elected representatives, seven million people signed a Google petition, and Engine Advocacy reported that it was completing 2,000 phone calls per second to local members of Congress.

The protest launched a political earthquake as previously supportive politicians raced for the exits. According to ProPublica, the day before the protest, 80 members of Congress supported the legislation and 31 opposed. Two days later, there were only 63 supporters and 122 opposed.

The SOPA protest ranks as the largest online action to date, but it was foreshadowed by similar developments around the world.

January 24, 2012 — 74 comments — Columns

Why My Website Went Dark Yesterday

The Toronto Star runs a special op-ed in which I discuss why I turned my site dark for 12 hours yesterday. The article (Toronto Star version, homepage version) reiterates how SOPA could be applied in Canada and emphasizes that if the U.S. passes the legislation, it is very likely to […]

January 19, 2012 — 20 comments — Columns

Are Canada’s Digital Laws Unconstitutional?

One of the first Canadian digital-era laws was the Uniform Electronic Commerce Act, a model law created by the Uniform Law Conference of Canada in the late 1990s. The ULCC brings together officials from federal, provincial, and territorial governments to work on model laws that can be implemented in a similar manner across all Canadian jurisdictions.
While a federal e-commerce law may have been preferable, the constitutional division of powers meant that it fell to the provinces to enact those laws.

The provinces took the lead on e-commerce legislation in the late 1990s, but over the past decade it has been the federal government that has led on most other digital rules, including privacy legislation, the anti-spam statute, and proposed digital copyright reform. Those efforts are now in constitutional limbo following the Supreme Court of Canada’s recent ruling that plans to create a single securities regulator are unconstitutional.

The December securities regulator decision concluded that the national approach to securities regulation stretches the federal trade and commerce clause too far into provincial jurisdiction. The court ruled that most of the securities regulatory activities deal with day-to-day contractual regulation within the provinces and that “these matters remain essentially provincial concerns falling within property and civil rights in the provinces and are not related to trade as a whole.”

My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes the repercussions of that decision may be felt far beyond just securities regulation. For example, federal privacy law may now be particularly vulnerable to challenge since it relies on the same trade and commerce provision.

January 11, 2012 — 7 comments — Columns

Crystal Ball Gazing at the Year Ahead in Tech Law and Policy

Technology law and policy is notoriously unpredictable but 2012 promises to be a busy year. My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) offers some guesses for the coming months:

January. The Supreme Court of Canada holds a hearing on whether Internet service providers can be treated as broadcasters under the Broadcasting Act. The case, which arises from a CRTC reference to the courts on the issue, represents the last possibility for an ISP levy similar to the one paid by broadcasters under the current rules.

February. Industry Minister Christian Paradis unveils proposed spectrum auction rules along with changes to Canadian restrictions on foreign ownership of telecom companies. After the earlier trial balloon of opening up the market to companies with less than 10 percent market share generated a tepid response, the government jumps in with both feet by announcing plans to remove foreign investment limits for telecom companies starting in 2013 in conjunction with the next spectrum auction.

January 3, 2012 — 3 comments — Columns