Episode 9 of “The Newsroom” includes Aaron Sorkin’s vision for the evolution of political leadership debates.

Yesterday’s Liberal debate in Vancouver might have benefited from Will McAvoy’s prosecutorial interrogation style to probe the candidates’ positions.

The Liberal party’s format of 20, 60 or 90 second sound bites didn’t really lend itself to an in-depth understanding of where the 9 candidates stand on complex issues.

Among the group of 9, George Takach and Marc Garneau continued to stake out claims to being the technology candidates.

From his opening statement, Takach clearly showed that his focus is on digital issues, calling for universal superfast internet access and a digital bill of rights.

Garneau reminded the audience that he too is a technology candidate, having circled the globe 350 times in space. He called for leadership candidates to set out their policy platform in the course of this race. “I have clearly outlined my policies on the issues that are important to Canadians including: the economy and jobs, trade and investment, sustainable development, Aboriginal partnerships and democratic reform.”

But it was Takach who kept returning to the role of digital issues in his vision for Canada.

For example, in responding to questions, Takach suggested high speed internet as a key component in reforming economic opportunities for First Nations. Via Twitter, he clarified that satellite and cellular will be part of the solution.

George Takach is seeking crowd sourced assistance in generating a Digital Bill of Rights. He sets out a number of starting points:

When participating in online activities, Canadians have the right to:

• Be free from surveillance not authorized by a court of law
• Be free from abuse of personal information
• Enjoy an open, uncensored, unobstructed internet
• Enjoy network neutrality and be free from traffic shaping and bandwidth throttling
• Enjoy anonymity, as long as they act responsibly
• Enjoy access to the Internet no matter where they live

What would you add, delete or change?

Will other candidates recognize the importance of digital issues in creating the platform for the Liberals in the next election?

I like to flip through newspapers.

Sure, most of the news that I read is online and I always seem to have a lot of tabs open on my browser to various news sources and aggregators. Still, I have multiple papers delivered to the doorstep each morning.

On line, I read stories that have headlines that catch my eye. at the breakfast table, I try to scan almost everything. A lot of the stories are old news – frequently, I find I have already read preliminary versions of the print articles in my online scanning the day before. But I also find there are important articles that didn’t grab my attention online.

Different papers cover different angles and present very different observations to their readers. I find that I benefit from diverse view points and I enjoy reading the tidbits of news and opinion that wouldn’t merit a click online. That is the difference between reading an article on Wikipedia and glancing at adjacent articles in a printed encyclopedia.

I wonder how “digital natives” – the kids who aren’t bothering to subscribe to any papers, let alone multiple dailies – are getting the benefit of random exposure to information. Frequently, I sense that while the internet makes so much information available, we tend to pull down articles that agree with opinions we already have.

At the same time, when I read an article that is clearly slanted in its perspective, I am grateful for the opportunity to scan the web, seeking balance.

Contrast a headline that reads: “Government Caves to Lobbying Pressure on Anti-Spam Legislation“. Contrast that view with Barry Sookman’s series of articles “Evaluating the Industry Canada CASL regulations: why they are needed“, and “Evaluating the Industry Canada CASL regulations: how to assess them” or this article or this one.

It is a question of balance.

Deloitte’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) Predictions always make for an entertaining read. The 2013 edition is being released today with Duncan Stewart, Deloitte Canada’s Director of Research, leading a 14 city roadshow with the presentation of their global research, leading into a discussion of how these trends will impact the Canadian marketplace.

Among some of the highlights I found interesting:

• While there is lots of talk about cable TV cord-cutters, Deloitte believes that 99% of subscribers to pay TV services will continue to subscribe at year end 2013;
• Nearly a quarter of the world’s smartphones will never connect to the internet. As a result, ad revenues per device get dragged down by the smartphone users who use their devices more like feature phones;
• Despite the growth in the number of internet connected tablets and smartphones, Deloitte predicts 80% of internet traffic will continue to be from PCs;
• More than 70% of our time on computing devices will be spent with a PC;
• About two billion people, or one third of the global population, are online, but that third is skewed toward developed markets and more affluent people.

The report predicts that crowdfunding will continue to grow in 2013, doubling to $3B. But there is a cautionary note as well:

If regulations around equity crowdfunding are relaxed, there are likely to be increased risks — and not just for investors. While crowdfunding may open the floodgates, capital will largely flow to inexperienced inventors and project managers. Crowdfunded projects have a history of unanticipated delays as inexperienced teams struggle with project deadlines and manufacturing details. To date, some research suggests that crowdfunded opportunities are a bigger risk than traditional IPOs, and that the potential for the average investor to misunderstand or misinterpret the promises of an early-stage startup are higher than for an experienced accredited investor.

Be sure to get a hold of Deloitte’s 2013 edition of the TMT 2013 Predictions.

There is plenty food for thought and discussion over coffee.

Your kids are going to love this study out of Oxford: UK teenagers without the internet are ‘educationally disadvantaged’.

But we knew that already, or at least strongly suspected it. As Greg O’Brien wrote in his commentary last year, quoting NCTA president (and former FCC chief) Michael Powell:

I dare anyone to disagree with this statement: “A child without access to the Internet will find life increasingly difficult in the information age.”

Oxford was able to apply some scientific rigour based on a study of more than 1000 UK households. The authors of the study say that the benefits of using internet technologies “far outweigh” the perceived risks, expressed by parents.

The study warned that teenagers who do not have access to the internet in their home have a strong sense of being ‘educationally disadvantaged’. About 10% of the teenagers in the study did not have online connectivity at home, with most of these living in lower income households.

We have written about this extensively and now Oxford researchers have confirmed what we already suspected. All kids need access to a connected home computer. Computers in our schools and libraries were a great start, but we need to do more to give all our kids a chance to succeed in a digital world.

Canada’s anti-spam law (“CASL“) is continuing down a painfully slow path toward implementation.

To recap:

• The CASL legislation itself was passed in 2010
• The report of the anti-spam task force was released in May 2005, having been established a year earlier.
• The CRTC and Industry Canada have held consultations on the regulations associated with the law. Industry Canada has just released revised regulations for public comment. The first of the CRTC’s Information Bulletins were released last fall. The CRTC’s regulations were released last March.

A number of commentaries have come out in the past week regarding the revised Industry Canada regulations. Michael Geist writes “Canadian Government Unveils Big Loopholes in Anti-Spam Regulations“. Michael Fekete of Osler writes “New Draft Regulations Soften Impact of CASL, but Concerns about Jobs and Compliance Costs Remain” while David Elder at Stikeman’s writes “Many business concerns remain following revisions to anti-spam regulations“. I encourage you to read each of these commentaries.

Regular readers will know that I share the concerns of the business lawyers; I believe the law will have the effect of damaging electronic commerce in Canada.

Different perspectives, based in large part on how far the legislation strayed from a focus on spam. Take a look at what the anti-spam task force wrote in 2005:

At the macro level, spam is a direct threat to the viability of the Internet as an effective means of communication. Because of this, spam is also a direct threat to increasing economic prosperity, to more efficient public services and to the emergence of an e-economy that includes all Canadians.

At the micro level, spam annoys and offends Internet users. It also provides a vehicle for activities that are clearly illegal — or should be. These include:

• malicious actions that cause harm to computers, networks or data, or use personal property for unauthorized purposes (e.g. viruses, worms, Trojan Horses, denial of service attacks, zombie networks);
• deceptive and fraudulent business practices, including online versions of traditional mail-based frauds (e.g. the “Nigerian bank account” or “419” scam, and “spoofed” websites masquerading as legitimate businesses);
• phishing emails designed for identity theft or to steal money; and
• invasions of privacy (e.g. email-address harvesting, spyware).

That describes what most of us consider to be spam – and we would agree should be the target of legislation. But CASL reaches far beyond. If a new restaurant or dry cleaner opens up in your neighbourhood, CASL makes it illegal for them to send out a email blast to tell you about them. They can print flyers and drop unsolicited paper off at your door but don’t try saying the same thing electronically.

In my view, we strayed too far from trying to target fraud. In doing so, Canada is going to cause harm to the adoption of digital technologies and electronic commerce.

CASL is an example of what can go wrong when we try to operate without an overall Digital Economy Strategy.