The Canadian Human Rights Commission has received its independent Report On Hate Messaging on the Internet prepared by Richard Moon of the University of Windsor.

Early reports have focussed on the headline recommendation:

section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) be repealed so that the CHRC and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) would no longer deal with hate speech, in particular hate speech on the Internet.

The recommendation continues to say:

Hate speech should continue to be prohibited under the Criminal Code but confined to expression that advocates, justifies or threatens violence. In the fight against hate on the Internet, police and prosecutors should make greater use of section 320.1 of the Criminal Code, which gives a judge power to order an Internet service provider (ISP) to remove “hate propaganda” from its system.

But that isn’t all that the report says about ISPs.

The report calls for ISPs to create their own hate speech advisory body:

The major Internet service providers (ISPs) should consider the creation of a hate speech complaint line and the establishment of an advisory body, composed of of individuals with expertise in hate speech law, that would give its opinion as to whether a particular website hosted by an ISP has violated section 13 of the CHRA or the “hate propaganda” provisions of the Criminal Code.

If this body were to decide that the complaint is well founded, the ISP host would then shut down the site on the basis of its user agreement with customers.

Further, while the report calls for this to initially deal with hate speech hosted in Canada, it suggests that applying this process to deal with content originating outside Canada can be studied later.

Technorati Tags:
illegal content, CHRC

Some people have questioned whether the existing regulatory framework is sufficient to have been used by the CRTC to examine the CAIP complaint about Bell’s traffic shaping.

NDP critic Charlie Angus is quoted by the CBC as saying:

[The] CRTC is applying outdated rules that this government has refused to change, leaving the average consumer and emerging business models at the mercy of the telecom giants.

Two years ago, the Telecom Policy Review Panel (TPRP) released its report, having looked at these issues in a broad review of Canada’s policy and legislative framework governing telecommunications. In April, Angus called for the government to adopt precisely the net neutrality provisions recommended by the TPRP.

So let’s look at what he wanted. Recommendation 6-5 calls for legislative changes to:

confirm the right of Canadian consumers to access publicly available Internet applications and content of their choice by means of all public telecommunications networks providing access to the Internet.

This amendment should

(a) authorize the CRTC to administer and enforce these consumer access rights,
(b) take into account any reasonable technical constraints and efficiency considerations related to providing such access, and
(c) be subject to legal constraints on such access, such as those established in criminal, copyright and broadcasting laws.

It seems to me that the CAIP application would not have succeeded any better with these provisions. Based on the discussion contained in the CRTC’s Decision last week, it was just as likely to have failed.

The TPRP leans toward allowing ISPs to make reasonable decisions, but importantly, with clarity of information to customers. As I cited when the report was first released:

Given the complexity of this area, the rapid evolution of technologies and the market dynamics, the Panel believes the regulator here should have more discretion than in other areas of regulation. However, the Panel also believes this discretion should be exercised with a view to encouraging reliance on market forces and customer choice as much as possible. For example, there may be situations in which a customer wants an ISP to block access to particular applications or content. In addition, some customers may be willing to accept a reduced degree of access in exchange for a lower price. Such consumer choices should be respected.

In the Panel’s view, the purpose of a customer access rule should be consumer protection, and there should be a strong emphasis on ensuring that customers have the information required to make informed choices. In this way, the rule would promote the efficient operation of market forces.

It is encouraging that the NDP is calling for the report of the TPRP to be adopted. Perhaps this support will help move legislation onto the government’s agenda.

We will again explore net neutrality as a panel at The 2009 Canadian Telecom Summit in June.

Never mind roadside assistance. I find I often need “on-the-road” assistance. I’m not just talking about the benefits of a GPS.

How do you drive safely and still have access to your Blackberry?

When I am with members of the family, they take control of my device and read incoming messages, taking dictation for replying to urgent messages. What do you do when there is no one else around?

Intelligent Mechatronic Systems from Waterloo has introduced iLane, which you can think of as a complete voice-based complement to your mobile device. The Globe and Mail had a story, talking with company COO Tony Cassetta last Thursday.

The product is being officially launched later today at IMS’ future new home in Waterloo.

iLane is described as the world’s first intelligent, portable device that lets you control your smartphone and access critical information using simple voice commands while you’re in your vehicle.

It plugs into your cigarette lighter and talks to your Blackberry using Bluetooth, getting access to your address book, your messages and your calendar. It also connects via Bluetooth into your vehicle’s handsfree system or to an earpiece, enabling the user to communicate with simple voice commands. Installation was simple enough for me to do it on my own.

Good Morning John, you have 18 new emails.

Click on the the photo of the driver to see a demo video.

You can ask for the headings of emails to be browsed, pausing for them to be read, deleted and replied to. Replies are by means of an audio file attachment, to avoid the frustration of correcting voice to text transcription.

I have been using my iLane for a few weeks now and it has been a handy tool for managing my email while driving. With more jurisdictions encouraging hands free operation of mobile devices, the timing is great.

Whether or not your jurisdiction has laws about emailing while driving, it is just plain dumb to try to have your thumbs on your keyboard and the steering wheel at the same time.

Ask your mobile device supplier to get you one of these.

The CRTC got it right yesterday with its Decision on Bell’s network management, but then everyone proceeded to mismanage the communications.

Let’s be clear.

Notwithstanding what you may have read elsewhere, the CRTC fully endorsed:

• the claims by Bell that its network is congested during peak periods (see paragraph 29);
• that intensive use of P2P file-sharing applications could “result in network congestion and degrade the performance of Internet services for other end-users” (paragraph 30);
• that it is reasonable to assume that CAIP’s members end-users would generate traffic in a similar fashion (paragraph 31); and,
• that Bell established that some network measures are required to prevent its customers from using, or permitting to be used, P2P file-sharing applications so as to prevent fair and proportionate use by others of its network (paragraph 32).

Focus on this last citation with an eye to the statement in today’s National Post:

The decision closes one chapter in a long-awaited ruling that industry observers saw as a judgment on how fair Canada’s Internet is for consumers.

The Decision is an endorsement for fair use of the internet. The CRTC said that shared internet resources should not be hijacked by a minority of users, using an application that is not sensitive to latency. The CRTC found that network measures were required to prevent P2P file-sharing from harming the fair use of the network by others.

While some ill-informed observers try to draw a parallel to a different outcome with the FCC and Comcast, they conveniently neglect to say that Comcast was blocking applications, with no evidence of their actions being tied to managing their network. No action was taken to target video streaming, other than to enhance it.

Let’s get the facts right. This decision was for a consumer friendly internet.

Technorati Tags:
CRTC, net neutrality

Yesterday’s forum on net neutrality in Ottawa brought together some of the voices on both sides of the issue from both sides of the border.

An important observation was that the Canadian legislative regime is very different from that in the United States.

One of the US-based net neutrality advocates said that Canada is “years ahead of the US from a regulatory perspective.” The American participants observed that the major Canadian ISPs are carriers as well and as such are subject to regulatory oversight. The luncheon speaker questioned why anyone would want to discourage experimentation in the way services are packaged for consumers – the implication being that this is a likely outcome with regulatory intervention.

Of course, there was some confusion in their terminology and some kept saying that in Canada, ISPs are considered to be common carriers – which is not true; only some of the ISPs happen to be carriers. Resellers are still ISPs, but are not carriers.

There were a few other areas that need to be examined further.

Some people bemoaned the lack of competitive choice of ISPs, suggesting that we cannot rely on market forces to discipline network misbehaviour by some ISPs. A specific question was asked if a carrier would accept net neutrality obligations in a monopoly situation, with a suggestion that this exists for 15-20% of all of Canada.

Of course, the premise is not sound. There are very, very few places where only one provider is an option. Satellite service is an alternative, as are the resellers. Further, we have a regime that enables ISPs and CLECs to lease loops and install their own DSLAMs.

I have written before about HSPA being used for fixed broadband applications. The current advertising campaigns and wireless data plans in the market seem to point to mobile becoming a genuine substitute for residential broadband.

How can we say that there are broadband service monopolies?