From David Fraser’s Blog:

Santa’s privacy policy 

I would like to wish readers a happy and safe holiday season.   Please enjoy the card, which was created for our firm by a London artist (a higher resolution image is here), and the Harrison Pensa Christmas video.

For the London Free Press – December 20, 2010

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Many people, including myself, predicted 2010 would be the year of the tablet computer. Apple has sold millions of iPads since its introduction earlier this year. But competing devices are only now coming to market.

The iPad was not the first tablet computer – but it was the first one with the right combination of features, form factor, and price, to be successful. It set the bar, and is the tablet by which all others will be measured.

In my view, the advent of tablet computers will be looked upon in the future as a game- changing event. Tablets will forever change how we consume information and media. Paper- based newspapers, magazines and books are already being supplanted by electronic versions. The portability and ease of use of tablets will accelerate this trend.

This is partly because the “lean backward” experience of tablets is more comfortable and more like reading paper than the “lean forward” experience on a computer. Tablets are as portable as a newspaper or book, and have the same instant-on experience.

Electronic formats allow a much better and more interactive experience than static paper. That experience will improve over time as publishers learn how to better use the medium.

Eventually, newspaper carriers will be mentioned in history books (electronic versions of course) alongside milkmen.

So is an iPad the perfect Christmas gift?

No doubt it will be for a lot of people. But many of us would rather impatiently wait a little while longer. The iPad is a compelling device, both for personal and work use. But it is a first generation device with a few compromises. Competing devices that were expected to be available this year are just starting to appear. The year 2011 will see more choice, and more competition.

Competitors available now include Android based devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab, and the Windows 7 based HP Slate 500.

Blackberry recently announced the Playbook tablet, which it shows off in a video demonstrating its superiority.

Others will be available in various sizes, running various operating systems, with different features. It is hard to predict which brands, models and sizes will ultimately be successful, or will for various reasons fail.

iPad version 2 will probably be available within a few months, which will improve on some of the current version’s shortcomings. For those of us willing to wait, that would be a good time to take stock of the iPad and its competitors to decide which is the best choice.

It seems that there are as many viewpoints on what tablets should do, what size they should be, and how they should operate as there are people writing about them. One thing that is certain is that there will be enough competition and choice to ensure continuing improvement in the devices, and the content we consume on them.

For the London Free Press – December 13, 2010

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Proposed legislation could have major implications for businesses, consumers

Development and innovation of technology inevitably breeds new laws to regulate that technology. For lawyers practising Information Technology law, there is a considerable amount of potential new law to digest.

For example, Bill C-28, the Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act, brings in several anti-spam measures. While this is welcome by most people, the language may take in things we may not consider to be spam and affect how typical businesses communicate. Since the penalties are significant, we need to take a close look at this act before it takes effect to understand what it will mean for a typical business or organization.

Bill C-29 would make several changes to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. Most of these were expected – and welcome – because they address issues arising from the current law.

But there are new parts that could use clarification. Language that tries to clarify what constitutes “lawful authority” to release information to law enforcement when requested doesn’t make clear what proof or threshold of proof is required. It also contains language requiring that the privacy commissioner and affected individuals be notified of breaches in some circumstances. The language has threshold tests, which on the surface are not as clear as they might be. If this language stays, it may take a decision by the privacy commissioner and/or a court to clarify the threshold.

Bill C-32, the Copyright Modernization Act, is the latest of several attempts to amend the Copyright Act. Controversial elements include digital lock provisions that would let publishers trump user rights. Much has been written about this, including a book entitled From Radical Extremism to Balanced Copyright: Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda, written by several copyright experts.

Bill C-51, which would amend the Criminal Code, Competition Act and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act a.k.a. Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act, is the latest effort to give law enforcement more access to electronic communications.

But what proponents call “lawful access” bills, critics deride as “awful access” bills. They question whether making things easier for law enforcement is worth the significant erosion in privacy and extra costs to Internet service providers.

These bills may have far-reaching practical implications, not only for many businesses and organizations, but also for consumers.

London photographer Richard Bain has just published a new book featuring images of Ontario vineyards.   This is the latest in a series that have included images of London, of Stratford, and the Thames river. 

And if you are looking for something to go along with it, consider an Orchestra London Holiday Gift Pack.

The Amabile Boy’s & Men’s Choirs annual Christmas concert is this Saturday.  (My son is in the choir.)  For those not aware of Amabile: “The continuum and depth that Amabile offers is unparalleled by any other choral organization in Canada. Amabile has achieved acclaim on national and world stages for its excellence in choral performance.”

Another good concert  to attend this weekend would be Orchestra London’s “Christmas at Christmas“.   (I’m now on the Orchestra London board of directors.)

Take a look at our video.  Its not the traditional holiday greeting.

Enjoy, and have a happy and safe holiday season.

http://www.harrisonpensa.com/xmas.html

That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows.

London is slowly getting back to normal today after effectively being shut down for 2 days due to a massive lake effect snowstorm.  Depending on where you are we have had between 2 and 4 feet of snow since Sunday night.  You know its bad when I made a trek yesterday from home to the local convenience store pulling a toboggan to get gas for the snowblower and milk.   And when UWO, Fanshawe, schools, malls and banks close, Canada Post stops delivery, and the city stops bus service.  Some of those remain closed today.  While the main roads are clear this morning,  and we had no significant accumulation overnight, forecasters are threatening another 20 cm of wind blown snow for later today.

Things look like a winter scene on a holiday greeting card.   Check out the photo gallery on the London Free Press web site.

I worked from home Monday afternoon and all day yesterday, and learned something about the paperless office that I need to correct.  I’m about 90% paperless.   The only things that are not electronic are some correspondence coming in, and notes that I’ve taken.  I can access our systems from outside the office via a remote desktop connection.  Even though it is not as efficient as working at your desk, it allows us to get things done. 

Where it falls apart, though, is that 10% that is still on paper back at the office.   If that 10% is something that you need to take a next step with, the 90% you can access is of little use.  So from now on I will be making a better effort to make that last 10% digital.  For the most part that means immediately scanning and filing any paper that arrives, and either taking notes electronically, or scanning in handwritten notes immediately after I take them.

Another observation is how news of closings and comments about snow and road conditions often first arrived by Twitter.  That goes for both official notices, and individual comments.  #snowmageddon, (or the technically incorrect but equally popular #snowmaggedon) became a common hashtag.

For the London Free Press – December 6, 2010

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When advertising your product on the Internet, using the name of a competitor can sometimes increase awareness of your own product. It’s even legal.

Recent decisions from British Columbia and Quebec have held that “keyword advertising” using the trademark or name of a competitor is a legal advertising practice. These decisions follow a similar trend in other jurisdictions.

Keyword advertising is a form of online advertising linked to specific words or phrases. Advertisers pay search engines, such as Google, for links to their websites to appear as “sponsored links” alongside the search engine’s normal search results.

The advertiser creates an ad which specifies certain keywords, then sets a maximum price they are willing to pay to use them. When a user searches using one of the keywords, the search engine checks to see which ad is most relevant and has placed the highest bid for the keyword.

These ads are then displayed as “sponsored links” on the search results.

If the user clicks on a sponsored link, the advertiser is charged according to its bid.

Advertisers sometimes specify trademarks or names of competitors as keywords. Such ads can sometimes outrank the ad of the competitor.

In Private Career Training Institutions Agency versus Vancouver Career College (Burnaby) Inc., the Agency sought an injunction against VCC to stop it from using competitors’ business names in its keyword advertising.

The Agency got complaints from member institutions. Students searching for other institutions clicked on sponsored ads for VCC, thinking the ads were for the college for which they were searching. Some even enrolled at VCC before realizing it was not the institution they had intended on attending.

The agency alleged that VCC’s use of keyword advertising was false, deceptive or misleading advertising designed to lead students seeking information about another institution towards its own.

The court refused to grant an injunction, finding that using keyword advertising was no different than the traditional marketing practice of locating an advertisement close to a competitor’s.

VCC’s actions were not found to have deceived consumers. Rather, the actions of individual consumers who clicked on the sponsored ads, or even enrolled at the schools, resulted from their own imprudence. VCC did not hold itself out to be anything other than it was.

The Quebec Superior Court dealt with a similar situation involving a chocolate company, Humeur Groupe, which purchased keywords of competitors for advertising on Google. In this case, Humeur specifically stated in its ads that it was an alternative to its competitor, Chocolate Lamontagne.

Despite the fact that Chocolate Lamontagne attributed a loss in sales of $112,000 to Humeur’s ad campaign, the court refused to grant an injunction. Information providing an alternative to a particular business cannot be prohibited. Rather, competition must take into account new ways of interfacing with consumers. The court referred again to the fact that individual consumers are freely choosing to access the alternative site.

It remains to be seen whether keyword advertising is contrary to the Trademarks Act, as the issue was not argued in either case.

That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows:

eHealth has been a major and controversial topic lately.  A lot of time and effort has been spent on it, as there are many issues such as costs,  privacy, security, and standards.

I had an encounter with the health system recently, and from my observations as a patient we need to keep this initiative moving, find ways to solve those issues, and stop using paper.  I paid particular attention to the paper and documents that were created.  Throughout the process, I was asked the same thing multiple times.  (Confirming who I was and what they were going to do multiple times to make sure they don’t make a mistake is welcome, though.) Once I noticed that a nurse was looking at one document, and copying information off it onto another.  By the time it was over, the clipboard had many pieces of paper on it.  No doubt some of that might be entered into an electronic record – which means double entry.  And some of it will get left on the paper and put in a file somewhere never to be seen again.

The current  health care record system has another fundamental flaw – in that records are centered around a particular doctor or hospital, when they should be patient centric.  Health care providers would have much better information about us if they had access to all of our records from the various family doctors, specialists, dentists, etc. that we encounter over our lifetimes.  That would lead to better treatment, and less time spent asking the same questions about things like family history and medications.  Patient centric records would also allow us to take better charge of our own health needs, including preventative health care.

We have the technology, lets rebuild it.