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

Here are some of the sites that are going dark today, or changing their home pages in protest over the proposed US legislation. For more information on why this legislation is so bad, check out these sites, or search for “SOPA” on Slaw or Techdirt.com, or just Google it.

Wikipedia:

Boing Boing

WordPress

EFF

This is Google’s US site. Google’s Canadian homepage does not seem to be affected.

Michael Geist

The Canadian Federal law An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service came into force on Dec 8.  (Even though the regulations under the act won’t be published until next week.)

The Act requires those providing an “Internet Service” to report to either the police, or to Cybertip.ca depending on the circumstances, any child pornography they become aware of on the net, or if anyone is using their service to commit child pornography offences under the Criminal Code. 

They don’t have to look for it, but if they become aware of it, and don’t report it, it is an offense subject to significant fines.

It is noteworthy that the law applies to more than just what we would consider ISP’s.  It applies to anyone “providing Internet access, Internet content hosting or electronic mail” to the public.

So that would include anyone providing open wi-fi to the public, such as a coffee shop or municipality.  If you provide any kind of public access to the internet, you need to understand your obligations under this law.

There is proposed legislation in the US that would give broad rights to block entire web sites based on mere allegations that a small part of it might have some infringing content.   The legislation is backed by the entertainment industry as an anti-piracy measure.  There is a groundswell of opposition against the legislation, but it is still very possible that it could become law.

Mike Masnick of Techdirt has a great article explaining in detail what the problem is.

For the London Free Press – October 24, 2011 – Read this on Canoe

Are Browse-wrap agreements binding?

Most web sites contain a link at the bottom of the page to “terms of use”. But are they binding on those who use the website? A recent Canadian case says they are.

Despite the prevalence of terms of use linked to the bottom of web pages, Canadian courts have not spent much time discussing whether they are binding the same way that “click-wrap” agreements are.

The Ontario Superior Court decision in Century 21 Canada Limited Partnership versus Rogers Communications Inc. shed some light on this issue. The case discussed the evolution of agreements as software sales have shifted from boxed software purchases to online.

“Shrink wrap” agreements are contracts that are entered into by the purchaser when they tear open the shrink wrap of a software purchase. Implicit in the opening of the packaging is the idea that the user is agreeing to be bound by the terms of use.

“Click wrap” agreements are when users are required to indicate their agreement by clicking on an “I Agree” box. Implicit in the “click” is the idea that the user is agreeing to be bound by the terms of use.

A “browse wrap” agreement does not require the user to click an “I Agree” box, instead the mere use of the website on which it appears may lead to a finding that the user is bound by the terms of use.

Click wrap agreements are binding in Canada pursuant to case law and legislation. The difficulty in “browse wrap” agreements is that the user may not realize a website contains terms of use, and even if the user is aware of the terms of use, the user may not agree to be bound.

But being bound by agreements one has not read is not a new concept. There are a series of ticket cases where fine print on the back of a ticket or document were held to be binding, provided that it is brought to the person’s attention. It doesn’t matter if the person actually read it, provided they could have easily read it if they wanted to.

Zoocasa, a subsidiary of Rogers Communications Inc., was “scraping” online real estate listings from Century 21′s website and reposting them on its own site with additional information. Zoocasa admits it had knowledge of Century 21′s terms of use, which included a term prohibiting scraping. The court found Zoocasa’s access and use of the website following actual notice of the terms of use constituted acceptance of the terms of use. Part of the court’s decision turned on the fact that Zoocasa is a sophisticated business entity and is therefore familiar with the concept of terms of use within a website.

The court did not have to determine if Zoocasa had clear notice of the terms of use because this fact was admitted.

Given that it is common practice for websites to have links to terms of use at the bottom of its pages, it would be logical to assume that would be sufficient to constitute notice.

That we are in the midst of a huge change in the way we communicate in our work and personal lives is no revelation.  But I think many of us don’t realize how rapidly this change is happening, and the many ways it will affect us.

It is a combination of things like mobile access, handheld computing power, inexpensive apps, cloud computing, location awareness, and social media.

Consider this: mobile devices are outselling PC’s, and digital media is equal to television in importance amongst ad executives. 

The explosion of smartphones and tablets enables us to get information about almost anything immediately wherever we are.  And to provide information to others just as quickly.  Tools like Google Goggles and Siri can do that by simply taking a picture of something, or speaking into our phones. (And really, the “phone” part of our phones is dwindling in importance to the rest of their features.)

All businesses and organizations should be thinking about how this is now affecting  them, and how it will affect them in the future – both in how it will challenge their current business models, and how they can use it to their advantage. 

And don’t forget to think about who your competitors will be.  For example, who is going to own the mobile payment space?  It might be the banks and credit card companies – but it could be telcos or Google.

It also raises interesting legal issues – like who owns the movie rights to a crowdsourced story, and how do privacy rights tie in with location aware services?

The one certain thing is that we ignore this revolution at our peril.

For the London Free Press – August 8, 2011 – Read this on Canoe

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) recently approved a new program for registering generic top-level domain names (gTLDs). The door has opened to allow for almost anything.

The current most commonly recognized TLD is .com, followed by .org.

By 2013, Internet users can expect to see an influx of new internet domain extensions, such as .bank, or ones using major brand names.

The new program will open up the Internet domain market for businesses, organizations and individuals who wish to distinguish themselves or their products in the virtual world by having a personalized domain extension. ICANN anticipates many of the new domain extensions will be registered by cities and other geographic locations, by corporations and by special interest groups.

Those who wish to register a gTLD must submit an application to ICANN and pay a $185,000 application fee. ICANN will begin accepting applications between Jan. 12, 2012 and April 12, 2012. After the application deadline, ICANN will review each application and assess whether the proposed domain extension will be appropriate.

ICANN has introduced a list of conditions and qualifications that must be met by gTLD applicants to ensure they have sufficient financial, technical and operational capabilities to administrate and maintain their gTLD. For example, applicants are first required to undergo background screening of their general business diligence and criminal history to validate the legitimacy of their application and prevent cyber-fraud.

If an applicant passes the background screening, it will be subject to several assessments and evaluations to determine whether their proposed gTLD is feasible. This includes a review to determine whether it will create user confusion or too closely resembles another gTLD. There is a process to determine which applicant will prevail if there are multiple applicants for the same gTLD.

Administrating a gTLD involves a huge commitment and the responsibility to ensure security, ease of access and uninterrupted use. Unlike registering a website domain, such as google.com,a gTLD can accommodate thousands of different websites with the same domain extension.

ICANN’s decision to expand the gTLD registry presents some potential challenges and concerns that must be addressed. For example, gTLDs are border-less but the entities that own the rights to administer a gTLD are confined to the country in which they reside.

A Canadian entity might, for example, acquire the right to administer the domain extension . bank and restrict its use to legitimate banks. However, other countries with different laws about what constitutes a bank may also wish to use the . bank domain extension. Such a situation may give rise to conflicts and liabilities if not adequately prepared for in advance.

The expansion of the gTLD will certainly make the Internet a more interesting place to explore as businesses and individuals seek to distinguish themselves and their products or services online. More information about the ICAN gTLD application process is in its Applicant Guidebook on its website at icann.org.

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

The .XXX top level domain application period is underway. This has been a very controversial topic. The XXX domain is available for users in the “sponsored community”, being the “adult entertainment industry”.

One of the criticisms of this TLD is the fear that people will try to register domains using names or trade-marks of those outside of the sponsored community. disney.XXX, or apple.XXX for example.

So a procedure is in place called “Sunrise B” where for a short period of time (September 7 to October 28), trade-mark owners can apply to have their marks blocked from registration. The wrinkle is that it costs hundreds of dollars to do that. Sunrise B applications are now being accepted.

So if you want to block your brand so others can’t use it to get a XXX TLD – the time to act is now.

But doesn’t this seem like a protection racket?

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

A survey by British ISP BE Broadband shows that if the three strikes proposal in the UK Digital Economy Act becomes law, it won’t significantly deter behaviour. Only 5% of those surveyed said they would reduce or stop using filesharing software. 47% said they would simply take steps to conceal their IP address.

This article at TorrentFreak.com talks about some of the concerns about three strikes laws, such as putting innocent users at risk, and a UN report that says such laws breach human rights.

Three-strikes laws are a controversial proposal to address download infringement concerns of creators and publishers of movies and music.

The concept is that if someone alleges an internet user is downloading copyrighted material, they can advise their ISP. The ISP then tells the customer to cease this illegal activity. If this happens three times, the ISP must turn off the customer’s internet access.

My view, and that of many others, is that such laws are draconian and should not exist. This link is to posts I have written about this topic before including links to others with similar thoughts, including a short video interview with author Cory Doctorow.

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

A few weeks ago when the postal strike was looming I wondered if a strike might be a tipping point that leads to even less mail being sent.

A Globe and Mail article says that has indeed been the case. The article says, for example, that 350,000 ING Direct customers have switched online in the past 2 weeks. The impact of that?

“Canada Post will lose at least $2,352,000 a year in revenue from ING Direct on stamps alone, assuming the company sends each of those 350,000 people one letter a month at the commercial price of $0.56 a stamp.”

The longer term question is how much this will continue to accelerate the migration to online bill presentment now that the mail has started flowing again.

This is more evidence that affordable access to the internet is becoming more important and necessary for Canadian consumers and business. It’s no wonder that internet access is being considered a human right.

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

This is World IPv6 day – a day that Wired calls the Nerdiest Holiday ever.

Many organizations – including Google and Facebook – are trying out the new IPv6 protocol today. The current addressing scheme for the internet uses IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4). But we are running out of addresses. An IP address is the numerical address for devices on the internet (such as computers or smartphones) that allow them to communicate. The concept is similar to the telephone number for your landline phone using POTS (plain old telephone service). IPv4 uses a 32 bit address, which allows 2 to the 32 , or about 4.2 billion addresses. IPv6 uses a 128 bit address, which allows 2 to the 128, or about 340 undecillion addresses. That’s 3 followed by 38 zeros. It also has other features not contained in IPv4.

An IPv4 address looks like this: 192.168.0.1 . An IPv6 address looks like this: 2607:F798:0010:0114:0000:0672:3121:0171 .

In addition to getting over an address shortage for conventional use, it provides enough addresses for the internet of things, where, for example, your house and everything in it (appliances, furnace, lights, …) can each have its own unique address.

One of the challenges is that IPv4 and IPv6 are not interoperable, thus requiring dual protocol techniques to be used so long as IPv4 addresses continue to be used.

For more information on IPv6, see this Wikipedia article, this Rogers article entitled World IPv6 Day: how will it impact you? , or the worldipv6day.org site.