My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that in 2009, the CRTC believed it found the right solution. It established Internet traffic management guidelines (often referred to as net neutrality rules) that created limits on how Internet providers could throttle or limit download speeds and encouraged providers to use “economic measures” such as data caps to manage demand by making it costlier to consume large amounts of data.
Torontoist has a terrific piece by Mark Coatsworth on his experience participating in the CRTC usage based billing hearing.
The Ottawa Citizen featured a masthead editorial over the weekend calling on the CRTC to avoid placing new regulations on over-the-top video providers, instead easing restrictions on Canadian broadcasters.
Last week I examined the failure to effectively enforce the guidelines, however, this case raises the question of whether Shaw is violating the rules by offering an over-the-top video service that does not count against a user cap while traffic from competitors such as Netflix does. The obvious complaint will be that Shaw is giving itself an undue preference in violation of Section 27(2) of the Telecommunications Act:
CRIA, now known as Music Canada, has given an Award of Appreciation to former Liberal MP Dan McTeague. I wrote about McTeague as CRIA’s Unofficial Spokesperson last February, which later escalated into competing blog posts. McTeague was defeated in the May election. CRIA also gave an award to Conservative MP […]
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The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 239: The Rise and Fall of Canada’s Digital Services Tax 
Canada’s DST Debacle a Case Study of Digital Strategy Trouble 
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Michael Geist
mgeist@uottawa.ca
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