Anonymous is all over Canadian news yesterday and today. I have been trying to avoid discussing them (it?) since I started this blog for fear of alienating any potential future corporate clients. I do have to make a living, you know. But I cannot ignore a big story that is all about law and the internet in Canada. Let’s dig through the muck after the jump.
Topic All
Happy Google Privacy Policy Day!
Today is March 1st, meaning that Google’s new Privacy Policy has gone into effect. I already wrote about it, but it’s still worth celebrating! Or complaining about, if you’re France, or Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, or, well, a whole bunch of other people probably.
I am currently hammering out a piece on the new policy for The Gazette’s Legal Matters. I’ll update this post with a link to that when it gets published, assuming they don’t reject it for my fucking salty language.
UPDATE – And here is The Gazette article. Fuck it’s not too bad. Enjoy!
UPDATE #2 – Check out what’s the most poular story on The Gazette right now:
Just don’t tell the Mob I’m more popular than them.
Amen, Rick!
Since both of my most faithful readers have sent this to me (tap of the gavel to Steve and moe), I guess I should post it. Also, all video of evidence of my CTV Newsnet appearance seems to have vanished due to the vast anti-privacy conspiracy, so you need something to watch.
“The State has no business in the hard drives of the Nation.” I want that on a T-shirt, pronto.
Everything about Bill C-30 Vic Toews doesn’t want you to know
So, Bill C-30. Man that shit really blew up last week, didn’t it? It was such a disaster, respectable news organizations like CTV Montreal have turned to your barely respectable blogger for an interview today on the noon news (update – check the video player on the right at montreal.ctv.ca and click on Newsmaker: Allen Mendelsohn for the vid). Want a preview of what I am going to say? Join me for a tour through the Bill after the jump.
Hot Parliamentary action this week
Hoo boy, big week for internet law in Canada, in the House of Commons. Two important things are happening / have happened:
1. Bill C-11, the Copyright Modernization Act that I’ve written so much about, passed second reading and was sent off to Committee. As there was never a Canadian Schoolhouse Rock, you probably don’t know how a bill becomes law in this country. Here’s the process. The point is that C-11 is one step closer to law, and the Conservatives are making good on their promise / threat to get this done with as little further discussion and debate as possible.
2. Today, the government introduced Bill C-30 to the House, with the official title of the Act to enact the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act and to amend the Criminal Code and other Acts. You may hear it referred to as “lawful access legislation.” You may also hear it referred to as “internet surveillance” or “online spying” legislation. Ominous! And it is. Basically it will allow the police to get customer info from ISPs and telephone companies without a warrant. This means that they can find out you’ve been on https://www.fuckvideos.xxx/ even though you’ve done nothing wrong or illegal. Oh, and also force the ISPs to install technology that will let the cops monitor online activities in real time. The government says if you are against that kind of thing, you are pro child-porn. Well that’s a little harsh, just because someone wants to watch a little porn online doesn’t mean they’re going to watch child porn, there are thousands of legal adult porn sites online like https://www.fuckedtube.xxx/ to name just one of them.
I’m going to actually read C-30 and will prepare a more detailed post about it in the coming days. In the meantime, Geist has a good primer, and here’s the Parliament page about it. Let’s all not jump to conclusions. I am sure internet surveillance in real time can’t be that bad, can it?
EDIT: This post has been edited to reflect the correct name and number of the second piece of legislation, Bill C-30. In fact, I was looking at an older version of the bill that did roughly the same thing. It was misreported in the first story I had linked to, but that link has now been updated as well. I sincerely regret the error and apologize to my 3 readers.
Good job Supreme Court!
HUGE day in internet law in Canada. No, really! The Supreme Court has issued a ruling that is a win for the ISPs (Bell, Vidéotron, etc.). Now normally I wouldn’t support anything that is a win for those robber barons, but in this case I’ll make an exception, because the Court came down for common sense. Deets after the jump.
Let’s read a privacy policy. For fun!
Do you use Google products? Of course you do. You’re probably using one right now. If you do, you got an email last week from Google saying that as of March 1st, you will be covered by their brand-spanking new Privacy Policy. Since there is nothing really exciting in Canadian internet law this week, I thought I’d take some time to read the thing so you don’t have to. As I write privacy policies for a living, I am confident I will be able to handle this task with all the usual straightforward hard hitting legal analysis you’ve come to expect from me. Or I could really pile on the snark. Join me after the jump to find out which one!
CRTC says your slow online game play wasn’t your fault
In all the hubbub over the SOPA/PIPA protest last week, we missed a story that dropped Friday that is pretty important. Turns out that Rogers is throttling. Big surprise! And the CRTC does not like it one bit. Deets after the jump.
…and we’re back. Protests work? Wow.
When this site along with tons of others went dark yesterday, we just assumed nothing would happen and today we would all get on with our lives. Well fuck me. This protest thing actually worked. Not that SOPA and PIPA have been withdrawn or anything, but a whole bunch of congressmen and senators withdrew their support for their respective bills. That group includes Senators Marco Rubio and Orrin Hatch, who were actually co-sponsors of PIPA, and Congressman Lee Terry who co-sponsored SOPA. Wow. And just as important, the day of protest rose awareness of the bills across the internet and mainstream media alike. I’m almost giddy today at the whole thing.
While the political fallout was great, from a fun point of view without a doubt the highlight of the day was #FactsWithoutWikipedia on Twitter. Absolute brilliant job, Twitterverse. Even yours truly got in on the act. Stupid hilarity like that is what the internet was made for.
Good job all around, internet!
How much more black could this be? None. None more black. SOPA/PIPA blackout tomorrow
The internet is a-protesting! Tomorrow, many many important sites will go black to protest the SOPA and PIPA legislation in front of the House and Senate respectively. This blog will join them, leaving all three of my readers in the dark, so to speak. Why should a Canadian protest American legislation you ask? Damn good question. Read this. If you don’t want to read all of that, the simple fact is that the American legislation will have extra-territorial effects. That’s a fancy way of saying that any Canadian site with a .com address could be targeted. Like this one.
Fight the power. Fade to black. See you on Thursday.
http://allen.mendelsohn = $185,000
As of today, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the internet’s governing body, in a sense), is accepting applications for new generic Top Level Domains, or gTLDs. Don’t worry, I’m out of acronyms. These new gTLDs could be just about anything. What is this and why is this important and / or stupid? You’ll have to find out after the jump. Don’t worry, there’s video to make it fun!
Parliament enjoys mediocre pop-rock and hypocrisy
Not to be outdone by their American counterparts, someone at Parliament is illegally pirating things off the internet, as uncovered by the Pirate Party of Canada. What’s the big deal? It’s not like the House of Commons is trying to pass legislation to reform copyright for the digital age. Oh wait. Deets after the jump.
Allen
Mendelsohn
is me.
I am a lawyer specializing in internet law working out of Montreal, though sometimes I do it in front of the U.S. Capitol. That should tell you what you need to know about internet law in Canada. I also warp young legal minds at the Faculty of Law at McGill.
More about me