Legal Commentary

Google – public domain books printed on demand

Posted on September 17, 2009
The Google print project to digitize the world’s books has been controversial.  I think this is one of those things that will impact us in ways most of us fail to grasp today.   Take, for example, public domain out of copyright books – of which there are apparently more than 2 million...

Internet stats

Posted on September 16, 2009
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows: Steve Rubel has a post today entitled Stats: the Internet in charts. Before you click on the link, take a guess at how long it would take you to read the entire internet if you printed it off, or how much area that paper [...

Online threats continue to grow

Posted on September 14, 2009
For the London Free Press – September 14, 2009 Read this on Canoe Financial gain, notoriety and mischief are main motivators for unscrupulous ‘Net users, report says. Symantec, maker of Norton Antivirus, recently released its mid-year update of 2009 Security Trends...

Social networking effect on job applicants

Posted on September 11, 2009
There has been a lot written about how what is found online about a person can affect their job prospects.  Employers often check out a prospective employee’s online reputation.  And people are reminded that what they post online, such as on Facebook, will be looked at by potential employers...

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Privacy Fail: Anonymization

Posted on September 09, 2009
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.   It reads as  follows: Data about individuals can be a valuable resource. Organizations holding personal information often aggregate or anonymize that data in order to gain valuable information on various trends...

1 character .biz names about to be auctioned

Posted on September 08, 2009
The Webnames.ca newsletter points out that starting September 23, 1 character .biz names will be auctioned off.   That means addresses such as 1.biz, and a.biz . It will be interesting to see what kind of money these go for.  On the one hand, single character domain names are as easy to remember as they come...

Doctorow on Cloud Computing

Posted on September 04, 2009
Cory Doctorow has an article in the Guardian entitled Not every cloud has a silver lining that is worth a read. Cloud computing is a current shiny object.  But its not for everyone, or every application. The article starts with: The tech press is full of people who want to tell you how completely awesome life is going [...

Border Crossings and Laptops - I don’t get it

Posted on September 02, 2009
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows: Simon posted US Homeland Security?s new rules on laptop searches for those crossing the border into the US. While there are some guidelines, they basically have the unfettered discretion to look at everything that is on one?s laptop...

Court backs plagiarism detector

Posted on August 31, 2009
For the London Free Press - August 31, 2009 Read this on Canoe TECHNOLOGY: Service cross-references students’ work against a database of essays During recent years, plagiarism has become a serious concern for universities and colleges. The prevalence of websites selling previously written essay papers has made obtaining counterfeit work easier than ever...

2010 - year of the tablet?

Posted on August 28, 2009
Take a look at this Wired article.    That article is a few weeks old, but was referred to in this post from yesterday about Apple’s upcoming announcements. I’ve thought for years that the touch screen tablet form factor was a winner - the problem is that the price has always been too high, and the performance never that [...

Court ruling backs oral contract

Posted on August 27, 2009
For the London Free Press - August 17, 2009 [Note: Due to a technical glitch, this column has not yet been posted on the Free Press or Canoe websites] VERDICT:  A recent Ontario Court of Appeal decision showed that it?s possible to enforce oral contracts under the right circumstances Oral contracts can be difficult to enforce...

Copyright reform survey results

Posted on August 26, 2009
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows. Last week I posed a survey on copyright reform. Here are the results. The result is overwhelming. So in anticipation of comments pointing out the following: - it clearly was not scientifically accurate - it is quite possible that the question was biased - it may reflect the [...

Outdated tech terms

Posted on August 25, 2009
Businessweek has an article entitled 12 Words You Can Never Say in the Office  that tells why using these terms will make you seem out of date.

Ruling says bar’s tactics over top

Posted on August 24, 2009
For the London Free Press  August 24, 2009 Read this on Canoe PRIVACY: A patron complained after his driver’s licence was scanned and his photo taken before he was allowed into a Vancouver club British Columbia Information and Privacy Commissioner David Loukidelis recently released a decision in response to a complaint by a customer of the Wild Coyote [...

Copyright reform survey - what do you think?

Posted on August 19, 2009
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.   Please vote. With the copyright reform hearings and public input now in full gear, I thought it would be interesting to get a feel for where readers are at with this issue. So I created this quick, clearly unscientific poll...

Legal privilege vs freedom of information - court decision

Posted on August 13, 2009
There is always a struggle between the concepts of privacy and confidentiality on one hand, and transparency and freedom on the other.   Dan Michaluk has a case comment in his All About Information blog discussing a recent Ontario decision that sided with the LCBO in its denial to release certain documents under a freedom of [...

The Onion on Google privacy - opt out and relocate to remote village

Posted on August 12, 2009
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.   It reads as follows: There has been lots of controversy over privacy issues relating to various services offered by Google and many others. Those issues are often not easy to come to grips with because they are in the context of previously unknown territory...

Bell vs Rogers - internet speed claims

Posted on August 11, 2009
Michael Geist has an article about the recent lawsuit Bell launched against Rogers after Rogers aired an ad critical of Bell’s internet speed claims.  We have all seen the Bell and Rogers ads that tout their advantages over the other for their various services (better/faster/cheaper/more HD/more channels/less equipment/easier to set up/more reliable…)...

More nations bid to block Internet

Posted on August 10, 2009
For the London Free Press - August 10, 2009 Read this on Canoe More governments are looking at ways to censor Internet content. Australia and China have plans to install Internet filters to block access to certain sites. In Australia, the proposed filter would block unsuitable subject matter such as child pornography and violence...

Facebook - brand protection with a catch?

Posted on August 07, 2009
Out-Law.com has an article entitled Facebook IP protection is only for companies that join that says Facebook’s protection against misuse of brand names in Facebook names is only available if the brand is actually registered as a username.  A cynical person might wonder if this is in part a way to get more businesses to [...

Privacy Commissioner Sponsors Camera Surveillance Workshop

Posted on August 05, 2009
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.   It reads as follows: Surveillance cameras seem to be everywhere these days. They are one of the creeping invasions of privacy that raise difficult issues. Isolated cameras on private homes or businesses controlled by the owner and which retain images for short periods of time are easy to [...

UK putting cameras in private homes

Posted on August 04, 2009
In the “you’ve got to be kidding” category is a post on Wired Gadget Lab that refers to an article in the Daily Express that says the UK government is going to put 20,000 UK “problem families” under 24 hour CCTV supervision in their own homes...

Happy Sysadmin day

Posted on July 31, 2009
Today is System Administrator Appreciation Day. Check out the official web site.    And ThinkGeek has some gift suggestions.

Technology advances creep up on us

Posted on July 30, 2009
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today. It reads as follows: Bill Gates has been quoted as saying: ?We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.? To put that in perspective, lets compare some specs...

Copyright consultations - information and tools

Posted on July 28, 2009
Michael Geist just launched a new site called Speak Out on Copyright.   Its worth a look by anyone interested in the current copyright consultations.    The intro to the site says: On July 20, 2009, Industry Minister Tony Clement and Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore launched the first Canadian public consultation on copyright policy since 2001...

Ruling boon to cable firms, customers. COPYRIGHT: Remote recorders save cable providers and subscribers money

Posted on July 27, 2009
For the London Free Press - July 27, 2009 Read this on Canoe On July 6, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal by a number of film studios and television networks of a ruling that allows Cablevision Systems Corp. to provide a new online digital video recorder service...

privacy fail - bank information via email

Posted on July 24, 2009
A client passed this along to post.  They started to receive statements via email.  The pdf statements had the account numbers blocked, but all the financial info was there. The client emailed the financial institution to indicate its displeasure, saying that email was not a secure channel, the statements contain sensitive business information, and they were not given an [...

Robo-ethicist - new specialty for lawyers?

Posted on July 23, 2009
Wired Gadget Lab has an article entitled Robo-Ethicists Want to Revamp Asimov?s 3 Laws.  Seems that some think that Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics are too simplistic.  Those 3 laws say: 1.  A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm...

Canadian Copyright consultations begin

Posted on July 21, 2009
The Federal government has just launched public consultations intended to lead to a new copyright reform bill.   The last few attempts to revise copyright law have not become law - but have been highly controversial. This is an important topic that affects things we do every day...

Failure raises Clear privacy concerns

Posted on July 20, 2009
For the London Free Press - July 20, 2009 Read this on Canoe No one enjoys long lines at the airport, so when Verified Identity Pass Inc, introduced a service called Clear that promised to shorten delays for frequent business flyers, it seemed like a good idea...

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