The first post in this series on Bill C-18, the Online News Act, focused on the problematic approach to what constitutes “making news content available”, as it encompasses everything from indexing to linking to news stories without reproducing the actual text. The approach raises serious risks to the free flow of information online and expands the law far beyond reasonable expectations of what “use” of news articles might mean. But the problems with expansive definitions in the bill are not limited to the “making available” provision. Bill C-18’s definitions for “news content”, “news business”, and “news outlet” are also exceptionally broad, raising their own series of concerns.
Recent Posts
The Online Streaming Act in Jeopardy: U.S. Takes Aim at the CUSMA Cultural Exemption With Threats of Bill C-11 Retaliation 
The Hidden Lawful Access Tradeoff: How Bill C-22 Lowers the Evidentiary Standards for Police Access to Subscriber Information 
The Lawful Access Privacy Risks: Unpacking Bill C-22’s Expansive Metadata Retention Requirements 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 261: Ian Goldberg on the Privacy Risks of Age Assurance Technologies 
Government Enacts Political Party Anti-Privacy Rules With Bill C-4 Royal Assent Sprint
