Last week, I wrote about concerns with the Electronic Commerce Protection Act (ECPA).

McCarthy Tetrault sent an alert message to its subscribers:

While the objective of the legislation is laudable, the bill’s overly broad language could circumscribe legitimate business-to-business marketing and impact software companies’ ability to deliver upgrades and patches to customers.

The article itself describes how Canada’s proposed legislation, as it currently stands, is more restrictive than other countries.

Unlike other international anti-spam legislation, the prohibition against unsolicited commercial messages in the ECPA is not limited to messages sent with some element of fraud or misleading information, sent with an “intent to deceive or mislead,” sent to addresses that were gathered using “automated means,” or sent in bulk.

The requirements for obtaining express consent are stringent and the circumstances in which an implied consent can be relied upon are limited.

Michael Geist wrote about the legislation on his blog and in his newspaper column this week, arguing that:

most of these provisions are standard fare around the world. All parties should recognize that providing reasonable consumer protections does not impede electronic commerce, but rather facilitate it.

The McCarthy Tetrault article disagrees with this assessment that a) the provisions are standard fare; and b) that these are reasonable consumer protections.

As an example, in a twist that seems to discourage increased e-commerce, businesses are not even permitted to seek consent electronically, because such a request itself would be a prohibited electronic message.

Are people not troubled by an attempt to impose limits on Canadians expressing legal communications? It is as though there is a presumption that all unsolicited messages – even those with legitimate expressions – are to be stopped.

Shouldn’t that concern more than the business community?

When we first looked at limiting the electronic distribution of content that is illegal in print form, there was a global reaction. The current draft of ECPA seeks to make it illegal to distribute content that is completely legal and has no intent to deceive. Where are the civil libertarians on this issue?

We’ll watch for changes to avoid Canada’s ECPA chilling e-commerce, rather than enhancing its adoption.

In a recent posting on one of his blogs, Mark Evans writes about “Why Social Media Fails“. He says that it is too easy to overlook the limitations of social media tools.

Facebook, Twitter, blogs, et al are weapons you can add to a communications, marketing and sales arsenal as opposed to silver bullets that can solve or fix your business challenges.

We have a panel looking at Social Media in Business and Society at The 2009 Canadian Telecom Summit. The panel features a diverse group of panelists from Google, MSN, Ryerson and Zoocasa and it will be moderated by David Jacobson of PwC.

Have you registered yet?

I wonder about the potential for the Electronic Commerce Protection Act to inadvertently chill some beneficial forms of electronic commerce communications.

Let’s look at the purpose of the Act:

3. The purpose of this Act is to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating commercial conduct that discourages the use of electronic means to carry out commercial activities, because that conduct

1. impairs the availability, reliability, efficiency and optimal use of electronic means to carry out commercial activities;
2. imposes additional costs on businesses and consumers;
3. compromises privacy and the security of confidential information; and
4. undermines the confidence of Canadians in the use of electronic means of communication to carry out their commercial activities in Canada and abroad.

So, we are trying to promote efficient, electronic means to carry out commercial activities. A wonderful and noble intent.

I attended a press conference on Sunday and I may have taken away more important insights watching the media at the back of the room than I learned about the subject of the government announcement on stage.

Keep in mind that for the past two weeks, I had been eavesdropping on the CRTC’s hearings on conventional broadcast licensing, and one of the key issues was the level of investment in local programming, including local news gathering. As a result, I have an excuse for spending time thinking about how news is gathered.

The CITY-TV representative at the press conference read his material off his Blackberry. His producer, who wasn’t there, was sending questions in real-time while the cameraman was reading them aloud verbatim, recording the Ministers’ announcements and responses.

It was as though the cameraman was being operated by remote control, which actually struck me as a very efficient way to gather news. Why send two people into the field, when all you really need on-site is a camera and someone – anyone – able to ask questions on your behalf?

Why even send your own staff?

Why not equip network of freelance photographers armed with a cell phone link and an ability to receive the questions over a smart phone. The reporter – hopefully an expert interviewer – can be sitting in a central studio in network headquarters, or at home where we belonged on Mother’s Day, simultaneously dealing with a handful of local stories located all across the country.

It is local news programming, without the overhead expense of local news staff.

Add radio stations to the mix of media properties and you can see how economies can be wrought from broadcast news. Not necessarily bad; but an important change enabled by embracing technology.

Technorati Tags:
broadcasting, Canadian Telecom Summit

I’m not sure why people are convinced that evil telemarketers are buying copies of the national do not call list in order to target those people who are least likely to respond to a call.

Isn’t it far more likely that companies that are violating the telemarketing rules are simply using robo-dialers to sequentially call every number? That would be far more efficient than precisely targeting the wrong people.

This isn’t just a Canadian story. See the story about how the US Senate is responding to these calls. The two annoying robotic calls that I get are from the car warranty and the credit card interest scammers. I think the way to prosecute them is that there is clearly false advertising. Each call promises that this is their last call!

Technorati Tags:
DNCL