The National Post reports that Facebook has asked a Canadian court to order Rogers and Look Communications to disclose customer information related to alleged attempted thefts of personal information on the social networking site.

Wiertz Sebastien - Privacy by Sebastien Wiertz (CC BY 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/ahk6nh
Privacy
The Lawful Access Workaround
With Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day now on record stating that the Conservatives will not introduce lawful access legislation that includes mandatory disclosure of customer name and address information without court oversight, we are likely to see law enforcement respond in two ways. One possibility is to promote the creation […]
The Telecom Takeover of Canada’s Do-Not-Call List
My weekly technology column (Toronto Star version, Ottawa Citizen version, homepage version) focuses on the quiet telecom takeover of the forthcoming national do-not-call list. In the past few months, the do-not-call list details have begun to emerge with the CRTC addressing questions surrounding who will run the list, who will pay for it, and who will investigate consumer complaints. While Canadians might expect most of those responsibilities to rest with the CRTC, the Commission appears to have a far different vision – one that involves a near-complete outsourcing of responsibilities to Canada’s dominant telecommunications companies.
The CRTC was never particularly supportive of the do-not-call list. Indeed, Charles Dalfen, the former CRTC chair, told the Canadian Press in 2004 that a do-not-call list was a good idea, but that the Commission "isn't equipped to administer such a list and doesn't have the power to enforce it properly." Consistent with that perspective, the CRTC has sketched out a system where the do-not-call list would be maintained by a non-governmental entity and paid for primarily by businesses that engage in telemarketing. Complaints would be investigated by the newly-created telecom company-backed complaints commission.
This system has elicited considerable opposition from some marketing, financial, and charitable groups, yet the telecom companies are unsurprisingly supportive since they are literally poised to run the entire operation from registration to investigation.
The Telecom Takeover of Canada’s Do-Not-Call List
My weekly technology column (Toronto Star version, Ottawa Citizen version, homepage version) focuses on the quiet telecom takeover of the forthcoming national do-not-call list. In the past few months, the do-not-call list details have begun to emerge with the CRTC addressing questions surrounding who will run the list, who will pay for it, and who will investigate consumer complaints. While Canadians might expect most of those responsibilities to rest with the CRTC, the Commission appears to have a far different vision – one that involves a near-complete outsourcing of responsibilities to Canada’s dominant telecommunications companies.
The CRTC was never particularly supportive of the do-not-call list. Indeed, Charles Dalfen, the former CRTC chair, told the Canadian Press in 2004 that a do-not-call list was a good idea, but that the Commission "isn't equipped to administer such a list and doesn't have the power to enforce it properly." Consistent with that perspective, the CRTC has sketched out a system where the do-not-call list would be maintained by a non-governmental entity and paid for primarily by businesses that engage in telemarketing. Complaints would be investigated by the newly-created telecom company-backed complaints commission.
This system has elicited considerable opposition from some marketing, financial, and charitable groups, yet the telecom companies are unsurprisingly supportive since they are literally poised to run the entire operation from registration to investigation.
The Telecom Takeover of Canada’s Do-Not-Call List
Appeared in the Toronto Star on October 22, 2007 as Do-Not-Call List Process a Farce The news over the summer that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission was at long last moving forward with a national do-not-call list generated a sigh of relief from millions of Canadians fed up with […]