Legal Commentary

iPhone 4 antenna issue – lesson in PR

Posted on July 16, 2010
Steve Jobs is currently holding a press conference to talk about the iPhone 4 antenna issue.  Its a carefully crafted message, as are all of his presentations – but its a lesson in how to deal with product issues.   Admit there is a problem. Put the problem in perspective by giving some numbers on complaints, [...

iTape for iPhone

Posted on July 14, 2010
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows. Whether you are an Apple fan or not, the apparent flaw with the iPhone 4 external antenna gets interesting on many levels – including the tech itself, why it wasn’t found during pre-launch testing, Apple’s reaction, customer relations, and testing by various [...

Don?t let privacy get lost in the clouds

Posted on July 12, 2010
For the London Free Press – July 12, 2010 Read this on Canoe So-called ?cloud computing? can be valuable ? but it can also come with risks Cloud computing – essentially providing computer services over the Internet – is a growing trend...

Thomson accused of breaching copyright

Posted on July 05, 2010
For the London Free Press – July 5, 2010 Read this on Canoe Canadian lawyers are suing for $50 million, claiming the company is making legal documents available for a fee without the authors? approval A class action was filed on May 25 against Thomson Reuters Corp...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

Birth-wrap agreement

Posted on June 30, 2010
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.   It reads as follows: We constantly see commentary on frivolous lawsuits, and cases that poke holes in limitation clauses in contracts of various types.  Perhaps everyone should have some sort of basic understanding of who is responsible for what...

Changes to privacy laws vague

Posted on June 28, 2010
For the London Free Press – June 28, 2010 Read this on Canoe PERSONAL INFORMATION: The language pertaining to ‘lawful authority’ and breach notification is open to interpretation Bill C-29 was recently introduced to amend the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act...

Marketing opportunities in social media

Posted on June 24, 2010
I was on a panel last night at the Ivey business School with Eli Singer, co-founder of Entrinsic Partners, a digital communications agency that builds corporate social media strategies.  Eli had many astute observations regarding marketing and social media...

Social media risks

Posted on June 23, 2010
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.   It reads as follows. I’m on a panel tonight at the Ivey Business School talking about trends and opportunities in social media.  I’ll be talking about legal and privacy issues. Some of the risks that come with social media arise from its newness...

Privacy worries spark backlash FaceBook: Popular site makes personal information more available

Posted on June 21, 2010
For the London Free Press – June 21, 2010 Read this on Canoe Many people are not concerned about their privacy on Facebook – but they should be. Facebook’s recent changes are a good lesson in how not to make changes that affect or control privacy...

Xbox for the office

Posted on June 16, 2010
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows: Microsoft has just formally launched a new gesture based controller for the Xbox called Kinect (formerly known as Natal) to go on sale November 4.  And a new, more compact version of the X-box...

Privacy Commissioner annual report to Parliament on PIPEDA

Posted on June 15, 2010
The Federal Privacy Commissioner released her annual report to Parliament last week on Pipeda.  This report summarizes her department’s activities over the past year.  Noteworthy elements include: Comments on how quickly technology (such as social networking) is transforming our lives – and the privacy issues that arise from those (eg...

How sale conducted may finger liable party

Posted on June 14, 2010
For the London Free Press – June 14, 2010 Read this on Canoe A UK court ruled it would be unfair to enforce a limitation of liability clause where the buyer relied on the company?s advice Commercial software purchases can be major investments. If problems arise or the buyer ultimately finds the software is not the right solution, [...

Speeding tickets based on guessed speed #fail

Posted on June 10, 2010
An Ohio court has said that a police officer’s “unaided visual estimation of a vehicle’s speed” is enough to support a speeding conviction.  That’s with no radar, and no need for the officer to have been beside or behind and read his own speed on his own speedometer...

e-records should be treated same as paper

Posted on June 09, 2010
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows: The Law Society of Upper Canada is having a teleseminar at noon today entitled “The New Guide to File Retention and File Destruction.” I’m one of the speakers – talking about issues relating to electronic records...

Anonymous web posters sometimes protected

Posted on June 07, 2010
For the London Free Press – June 7, 2010 Read this on Canoe Ontario court says website operators can?t always be ordered to disclose the identity of posters accused of defamation. On May 3, 2010, an Ontario Divisional Court appeal decision addressed the issue of whether a web site operator should be required to produce information that could [...

Copyright Modernization Bill C-32 – digital lock seems illogical

Posted on June 03, 2010
Here are links to the bill itself, and to a government site called “Balanced copyright” that has information about the bill. I have not yet taken the time to read it in detail or think it through.  Here is Michael Geist’s initial reaction...

Copyright bill expected today

Posted on June 02, 2010
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.   It reads as follows. The new copyright bill is expected today.  There has been much anticipation about what it might contain.  That is understandable given that several failed and controversial attempts have been made to pass a reform bill over the last few years...

Colombia opens .co domain name to whole world

Posted on May 31, 2010
For the London Free Press – May 31, 2010 Read this on Canoe You’ll have to act fast to protect your brand The country of Colombia is making its .co domain names available to those with no connection to the South American country.  Typically, country level domains (such as ...

PIPEDA amendments tabled – bill C29

Posted on May 27, 2010
PIPEDA, or the Personal Information & Electronic Documents Act is the Canadian privacy law that covers federally regulated entities, and provincially regulated entities in provinces like Ontario that don’t have their own privacy laws. Bill C29 was introduced in Parliament this week that will make several amendments to PIPEDA...

FISA – new anti-spam bill introduced

Posted on May 26, 2010
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows. The Canadian government introduced two important new bills yesterday. Bill C-29 amends PIPEDA ? I?ll leave commentary on that to David Fraser. Bill C-28 is the ?Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act? or FISA...

Happy Geek Pride Day (aka Nerd Pride Day)

Posted on May 25, 2010
Today is Geek Pride Day, coinciding with the date of the premier of the first Star Wars Move in 1977.  Wikipedia contains this manifesto: Rights: The right to be even geekier. The right to not leave your house. The right to not like football or any other sport...

Fiskars gets warranty service right

Posted on May 20, 2010
We hear far too many stories about bad customer service.  Or unsympathetic or unresponsive warranty service.  Or convoluted or unrealistic warranties.  So when we have a good experience, it deserves to be mentioned. I have a Fiskars brand weeder.  It works well, but a couple of weekends ago it broke...

iPad as a business tool

Posted on May 19, 2010
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows. I thought for my first post on the shiny new Slaw format, I should talk about a shiny new object.  Over a million iPads have been sold so far. Many comments about the iPad can be found on Slaw, including my thoughts that [...

eBay not liable for fakes sold on site

Posted on May 17, 2010
For the London Free Press – May 17, 2010 Read this on Canoe Court says popular site is not responsible for counterfeit items We are all familiar with the sayings: “buyer beware,” “all that glitters is not gold” and “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is...

Giving formal notices by email raises legal issues

Posted on May 13, 2010
John Gregory has a good post on Slaw talking about a recent English case that considered when an email is received for the purpose of accepting an offer of a contract. In some ways, it seems odd to discuss notices by email in a time where we talk about service of court documents by facebook and twitter...

Digital Economy Consultation – our Moonshot

Posted on May 12, 2010
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.   It reads as follows: The Canadian government announced a consultation on the future of Canada’s digital economy at the Canada 3.0 conference this week. I encourage readers to add their thoughts to the consultation process – which is open for the next 60 days...

Mitch Joel comment on Blog popularity

Posted on May 11, 2010
Great post entitled “why this blog is a failure” that talks about how to increase one’s blog audience, and why that’s not for everyone.  Frankly, unless your sole reason for being is to drive revenue from traffic, or to drive traffic for some specific reason, sheer numbers of followers for one’s blog, twitter, etc...

New system for issuing tickets holds up in court

Posted on May 10, 2010
For the London Free Press – May 10, 2010 Read this on Canoe Judge finds that electronic method of signing notices is valid In September 2009, London police implemented a new system that allows officers to issue Provincial Offence Notices electronically...

Why paywalls are counter productive #fail

Posted on May 05, 2010
There are many reasons why paywalls are a bad idea – here’s one that happened to me. A reporter for a specialty magazine interviewed me recently about some pending legislation.  The article was to be published now – so I checked the website...

Test your ID theft risk

Posted on May 05, 2010
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows: The Canadian Privacy Commissioner posted a link to a short test to see how you fare in minimizing the risk of ID theft that is on a website managed by the Australian Privacy Commissioner...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.