In a controversial decision, the Federal Privacy Commissioner decided that the “business card exemption” in PIPEDA does not include a business email address. Thus a business email address is personal information and subject to the legislation. The “business card exemption” says personal information does not include name, title or business address or telephone number of an employee of an organization.
While the exemption does not specifically mention “email address”, many felt that email would be considered part of the “business address”.
This decision is also noteworthy as it is the first one to deal with spam.
Futher details, and a link to a Toronto Star article can be found on David Fraser’s Pipeda and Canadian Privacy law blog.
Read the Privacy blog
Read the decision
David Canton @ 2:01 pm
An article on CNET News says that: A mysterious bidder paid $15.5 million Monday in a bankruptcy court auction of dozens of Internet-related patents–and then rushed out of the courtroom.
On the United States Bankruptcy Court auction block were 39 patents owned by Commerce One, a bankrupt software company in Santa Clara, Calif., that’s in the process of shutting down and liquidating its assets.
The patents cover a set of key technical protocols known as Web services, a popular method for exchanging business documents over the Internet. The protocols are in wide use today; Microsoft, IBM and other software companies both large and small have incorporated them into their programs.
Some had anticipated that a major company or companies would purchase the patents and shelve them so they could not be used to extract license fees.
This is worth watching to find out who the mysterious buyer is, and what they will do with the patents.
Read the article
David Canton @ 1:55 pm
Fred von Lohmann of The Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote an article appearing in law.com entitled Et tu, Marvel?. Seems Marvel comics has sued a company that created an online game called City of Heroes for copyright and trade-mark infringement. The game allows users to create their own superheroes then join other players in a virtual on-line world. Marvel is concerned that the users might create heroes similar to their own.
The article points out that if this was successful, it would not be a leap to require kids to get permission to pretend to be superheroes in their own back yards!
Read the article
DAVID CANTON – For the London Free Press – December 4 2004
Read this on Canoe
Imagine being refused service for being too professional. Some photographers are being questioned by photo labs as to the ownership of digital images they have brought in to be printed.
The pictures apparently look too professional to be done by the person bringing them in. In some cases, retail photo labs have refused to print the pictures for fear of copyright infringement liability.
(more…)
Industry Canada’s Spam Task force is presenting a roundtable discussion Friday morning at 9:00 AM EST.
According to Industry Canada: “The purpose of the Stakeholder Roundtable is to provide an update of actions taken by the Task Force, as well as identify anticipated future challenges and solutions. The Roundtable will also offer an opportunity for key stakeholders to provide feedback regarding the fight against spam. In doing so, the Roundtable will highlight the progress being made in implementing the Anti-Spam Action Plan and the collaborative effort needed in the fight against spam”
Listen to the Roundtable
David Canton @ 9:06 am
Voice over IP has many advantages over traditional phone lines, and is growing in popularity. It is not without problems – which should be no surprise when comparing new technology to phone technology that has been developing for generations.
ITBusiness.ca reports on a VoIP summit setting out some of the issues, such as 911 availability, power outage reliability, and security issues.
Read the article
