News

The Globalive Decision: Time To Pick Competition Over Canadian Ownership

The CRTC this afternoon issued its decision on whether Globalive, a new wireless competitor about to operate as Wind Mobile, complies with the foreign ownership restrictions currently found in the Telecommunications Act.  While Industry Canada previously concluded that Globalive met the Canadian control requirements for the purposes of the Radiocommunications […]

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October 29, 2009 31 comments News

Reacting To Lawful Access: Comparing the Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP

Earlier this week, I posted on the Liberals first reaction to Bill C-46, part one of the lawful access package.  Rather than focusing on substantive issues, the immediate response was "what took you so long," an obvious effort to appear even tougher on crime.  C-46 was sent to committee for further study on Tuesday.  Immediately afterward, C-47, the other half of lawful access came up for second reading.  This part of the bill is particularly problematic is it raises the prospect of mandatory disclosure of personal information without a warrant and requires ISPs to install new surveillance capabilities on their networks. 

The warrantless access to information is incredibly troubling as it runs counter to a pledge from the previous Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, has only been supported a mischaracterized incident from earlier this year, and raises fundamental problems with the privacy vs. security balance. In fact, the bill goes even further than the Liberal version of the bill from years ago, by adopting an exceptionally broad definition of customer name and address information.

Once again, the reaction to the bill was telling. 

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October 29, 2009 13 comments News

Industry Committee Issues C-27 Report

The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology has issued its report on Bill C-27.  The report includes all the changes to the anti-spam bill, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act.

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October 29, 2009 Comments are Disabled News

Anti-Spam Bill Passes Committee Without Copyright Lobby Spyware Provision

Bill C-27, the anti-spam bill, passed through the Industry Committee late Monday with the bill largely intact.  Indeed, Industry Minister Tony Clement was true to his word as the several provisions that would have watered down the legislation were dropped (third party referrals, exceptions for survey companies and self-regulated industries) […]

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October 28, 2009 4 comments News

CRTC Sends Message: Traffic Management Rules Apply To Wireless Too

CRTC Chair Konrad von Finckenstein delivered the keynote address at the International Institute of Communications conference in Montreal yesterday.  The speech reviewed last week's traffic management/net neutrality decision.  On the issue of wireless, he stated: At some point down the road, we will need to review the regulatory measures that […]

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October 28, 2009 4 comments News