Sometimes I just don’t get things. Case in point – the current CRTC hearings about issues on over the air TV. Press reports say that broadcasters have asked to be able to charge the cable and satellite companies for their signals. Of course, that means the viewer. The CBC said one reason they need more money is to move to HDTV, as advertisers won’t pay more for HDTV.

Ted Rogers of Rogers Cable called the proposal “trash”

So here’s what I don’t get.

Conventional TV is losing audience for various reasons, including the Intenet video phenomenon.

There is a growing demand for HDTV. People I know that have HDTV’s skew their viewing habits towards whatever is in HD.

Thus going to HD should increase (or at least stem the decrease) audience for a show/network. While advertisers may not want to pay more for HD, they do pay based on audience size.

But some broadcasters are slow to adopt HD, and want to charge customers more, which will reduce viewers?

Read a Globe and Mail article on the broadcaster comments

Read a London Free Press article on Ted Rogers comments

Get more detail from the CRTC web site

David Canton – For the London Free Press – November 25, 2006

Read this on Canoe

Online gaming has existed as a form of business and entertainment since the 1990s.

Online gaming operators offer different forms of gambling and betting that generated nearly $12 billion in revenue last year. Though the online gaming industry is clearly popular, it has lead to debates and controversies.

The legality of online gaming varies around the world. Many jurisdictions have legalized and regulated the industry. However, in Canada, there are several legal issues surrounding online gaming ventures. For example, any gaming operation, including an online operation not licensed by a recognized authority is illegal.

Ontario is stepping up to regulate and enforce the industry more effectively through proposed Bill 152.

The proposed bill would prevent the advertising of illegal online gaming sites in Ontario.

The Government Services minister believes that even though online gaming is illegal, the enforcement of existing regulations has not been a priority. The new bill was introduced to step up enforcement.

Currently, the regulation of online gaming does not occur at the provincial level in Canada. However, the effect of the proposed legislation would curb the information source of many of the websites by banning advertisements that promote online gaming sites. This falls in the realm of Ontario’s enforcement jurisdiction.

The potential online gaming advertisement prohibition is limited in scope by focusing on advertisement. Section 13.1 (1) of the proposed code provides as follows: “No person shall advertise an Internet site that operates an Internet gaming business contrary to the Criminal Code (Canada).”

In addition, the next clause, that pertains to sponsorships, has the potential to indirectly affect online gaming advertising: “No person shall enter into a sponsorship relationship with an Internet gaming business that is operated contrary to the Criminal Code (Canada).”

If the proposed bill passes, online gaming operators who have links to Canada will have to consider several variables and be aware of how the venture is structured in an effort to abide by Ontario’s new law.

Government run lotteries, both charity and commercial, apparently are showing a decrease in revenues.

As it stands now, this bill is only a proposal that must still be approved by the provincial legislature. If the bill is approved, it would likely come into force early next year.

If this bill is passed, the ban would move Canada away from the British approach to regulating online gambling, and toward the U.S. approach. Britain is of the view that online gaming is legal as long as the Internet servers are located in a jurisdiction that permits it, while the U.S. seeks to ban online gaming altogether.

Stuart MacDonald has a post worth reading entitled Web 2.0 is over. And it’s a good thing.

So you still don’t know what web 2.0 is about, and feel you might have missed something? Not to worry. As Stuart points out this has followed the path of many innovations. They start out as the bleeding edge new thing, but eventually work their way into the mainstream.

When e-commerce first came along, many thought it was a new thing that would usurp traditional bricks and mortar stores. Like Stuart, I felt that for the most part it was just another delivery channel that existing entities would adopt.

That comment is not meant to belittle the advancement – or to suggest that there can’t be innovations that are true standalone disruptive technologies – but to show how for the most part innovations get adopted.

Read Stuart’s post

A couple of articles I saw this morning together emphasize that the efforts to stop every technical copyright violation of ones content, promote DRM, and protect it with DMCA type legislation (unfortunately probably coming to Canada soon) do not in the long run protect copyright holder interests.

Techmeme points to an article that says that CBS TV ratings have increased for shows that CBS posted clips of on Youtube.

Michael Geist points to a Newsweek article that talks about how people are getting fed up with competing and incompatible rights management schemes for music players and download sites.

I think the discussions about the things that should be exempt from legislation preventing DRM hacks is misplaced – simply don’t pass DRM protecting legislation in the first place.

I do have sympathy for creators of products not getting compensated for that due to unpaid copying (bootleg copying or counterfeiting is certainly not a good thing). Most of the efforts at DRM and trying to stop individual copying or posting on sites like YouTube does not seem in the long run to have any positive effect.

Seems that ticking off the very customers you want to reach, and stopping free advertising, outweighs any protection that is gained.

Read the techmeme post

Read Michael Geist’s post

David Canton – For the London Free Press – November 21, 2006

Read this on Canoe

An act to modernize various acts administered by or affecting Ontario’s Ministry of Government Services was introduced for first reading Oct. 19.

The bill proposes amendments to 53 Ontario statutes including the Consumer Protection Act, the Land Registration Reform Act, the Liquor Licence Act, the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Business Corporations Act.

The proposed legislation addresses a number of issues important to Ontarians, including real estate fraud. , For example, it seeks to lessen property owners’ risk of losing their home or becoming responsible for fraudulent mortgages.

The proposed legislation would introduce safeguards for suspending and revoking the accounts of suspected real estate fraudsters. Also, it would increase fines for real estate fraud offences from $1,000 to $50,000 and strengthen the government’s authority to allow for notification of property owners about any change to their title.

The proposed legislation also deals with identity theft. The bill amends the Consumer Reporting Act to provide for alerts on consumers’ files.

The bill would give consumers the right to place fraud alerts on their credit reports. It also would place an obligation on credit agencies to disclose the flag when anyone accesses the report and it would force lenders and people who access the report to take reasonable steps to verify the person involved in the transaction is the customer.

Amendments are proposed to deal with gift cards. If passed, the legislation would give the government powers to regulate expiry dates and other issues.

The bill would introduce reforms to Ontario’s liquor laws. A proposed change in the legislation would allow bars and restaurants to expand their licences to let patrons carry drinks with them to separate areas of an establishment, such as the washroom.

The rationale is consumers can monitor their drinks at all times, reducing the likelihood of an unknown substances such as date rape drugs being used to taint their drink.

Corporate and business laws are part of the mix as well.

The proposed changes attempt to improve corporate governance, increase shareholder protection and make businesses more competitive.

One of the amendments to the Ontario Business Corporations Act would reduce the requirement for Canadian resident directors from a majority of directors to 25 per cent.

Also, it would eliminate residency requirements for transacting business at directors’ meetings and for appointing a managing director.

Critics have referred to the modernization bill as the government’s housecleaning bill. They believe by attempting to cover everything, the government does not really deal with the issues concerning Ontarians in any serious way.

Digg is one of the many blogs I monitor – but I’m considering deleting it from my RSS list.

Why? There are just too many entries. Even though I look at my blog feeds daily the sheer number of Digg posts take too long to get through. On many days I just ignore the Digg posts because I don’t have time.

To me, there are 2 basic types of blogs. First is the niche blog that has a few posts by an author. The second is an aggregator that pulls various items together in one place. The aggregator blog loses its appeal if it has too much content – and perhaps is not doing a good enough job at filtering them…

When the PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) federal privacy legislation was enacted it contained a mechanism for Parliamentary review every 5 years.

That first review is now under way. Michael Geist reports on the hearing schedule that starts next week.

Read Michael’s post

ITBusiness.ca has an article entitled Privacy expert highlights risks of implanting chips in patients that talks about implanting microchips in patients for various reasons.

The article discusses a presentation made to a conference on electronic health information by Prof. Ian Kerr.

Its an interesting read. As is often the case with new technology – especially that meant to capture or store information – there can be significant benefits, but also significant potential for abuse of privacy, security or other matters.

Its important to raise these issues and have these debates before such technology is widely deployed, as the way they are implemented is crucial to minimizing the risks.

Read the ITCanada.ca article

David Canton – For the London Free Press – November 11, 2006

Read this on Canoe

The amount of spam on the Internet is significant. Some of it is filtered out by Spamhaus, a United Kingdom-based volunteer organization that runs an anti-spam service.

Some entities, such as e360Insight (e360), did not like the volunteers to whom we are indebted and sued them for blocking their spam. Spamhaus ignored the e360 lawsuit, which, if successful, would shut down or suspend the Spamhaus domain name, because Spamhaus refused to recognize the U.S. court’s jurisdiction and $11.7-million judgment.

Most recently, regardless of Spamhaus’s failure to defend the action, an Illinois judge denied a motion by e360 to suspend Spamhaus’s domain name because the compl-ainant’s requested relief is too broad. That request for relief was aimed at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees the domain registration system, and Tucows, the registrar Spamhaus used to register its domain name.

The Illinois court noted that since there is no indication ICANN or Tucows participated with Spamhaus, the Court could not conclude that either party could be brought within the ambit of the Federal Civil Procedure Rules, which provide that an order granting an injunction is binding only on the parties to the action or on those persons in active concert or participation with them.

ICANN issued a statement saying it does not have the ability or authority to suspend individual domain names.

If Spamhaus were to be shut down, we would all feel the effects. Spamhaus states that more than 650 million Internet users, including those at the White House and the U.S. army, benefit from Spam-haus’s services. It has been said that as many as 50 billion junk e-mails a day would be unleashed worldwide.

In mid-October, Spamhaus released a statement reassuring computer users there is no need for alarm.

Spamhaus stated it initially ignored the order because a U.S. court has no jurisdiction over a U.K.-based organization, but Spamhaus states it is working with lawyers to both appeal and contest the ruling that may shut it down.

It is interesting that the Tucows registrar is located in Toronto. This raises the additional jurisdictional question of whether an Illinois judge can order a Canadian company to deregister a domain name based in the U.K.

We should also hope that spammers’ actions to shut down spam filters do not have a chilling effect on the anti-spam industry.

Its ironic that the same multijurisdictional tactics that spammers hide behind worked to keep Spamhaus in business.

CNET has a new website at webware.com to cover browser based online applications.

As they put it: There’s a fundamental shift underway in how people use computers and the Internet. Every day, more real utility is being delivered over the Web. Full applications can now be run in a browser, accessible from any computer, and software is no longer required for many applications. Software is becoming Webware.

Take a look if you are curious about what webware is all about, or want to see examples of webware apps.