Preparations for The 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit kept me from attending to all of my emails and news clippings. I notice that last month, a French court ordered ISPs to block hate material hosted in foreign jurisdictions.

An article in Express indicates that the court has ordered ISPs to take all appropriate steps to block access in France to the offending content.

toutes mesures propres à interrompre l’accès à partir du territoire français

France appears to be establishing a process to have users flag sites that offend which will launch a judicial review of internet content that contravenes its hate laws.

Many countries, including Canada, prohibit offending content from being hosted or controlled within their national borders, but such limitations tend to simply chase the content to foreign hosting companies, such as those located in the US.

While other countries have implemented various technology schemes to restrict access to some content, France is among the first western democracies to remove the ‘digital exemption’ from its hate speech laws, regardless of where the content is hosted.

Technorati Tags:
France, hate speech

My internet went off the air yesterday around 1:30 in the afternoon, at precisely the same time that I lost connectivity for the entire bundle of services from that provider. Service was still down when I left at 6:30. It came back up this morning. Sorry for the delay in posting today.

I immediately suspected that the culprit was the construction crew around the corner that was walking around sheepishly.

I called my service provider and was pleased to find a new IVR voice that seemed smarter at interpreting my request. However, when I reached a human to describe the problem, I found that I might have been better off dealing with a machine.

Our dispatch scheduling system is down right now; you’ll need to call back later.

I don’t think so.

I had just waited patiently for 10 minutes to get through the first time, listening to awful lounge-lizard music. Why should I have to call back later, not knowing if the system would still be down at that time?

Why is it too much to ask for them to take my information and call me back? Why do some service providers seem to forget that the operative word is “service”?

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internet, customer service

It’s Canada Day. A day for barbecues, picnics and fireworks.

It is also the day that a three month grace period ends in Quebec for drivers using cellular phones without a hands-free kit.

Violators can attract a fine of $115 plus 3 demerit points and penalties apply even if the drivers are simply spotted with a cellphone in their hands, whether or not there is an active call.

Quebec is the latest province in a trend flowing west from the Atlantic. In 2003, Newfoundland was first to enact a hands-free law, with fines of $400 plus demerit points. Nova Scotia’s legislation came into force April 1 with fines of $165 for a first offence.

All of us are going to need to get used to listening to speakerphone background noise. Will stylish headsets be seen on the runways this fall?

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cellular, hands-free

It seems the bidding for AWS spectrum just keeps going and going and going.

The auction is now taking a one day break for Canada Day.

As June 30 drew to a close, 10% of the auction properties continued to be attracting new bids and the total value of the bids has continued to creep up about $1M per round.

When bidding resumes on Wednesday, will this be the final sprint to the finish?

Technorati Tags:
Industry Canada, AWS Spectrum Auction

Mark Evans has been writing recently about the need for people to pause, take a deep breath and think a little longer before hitting the send button. He had an earlier piece with a similar theme.

He writes:

One of the major challenges within the always-on, always accessible world is the belief that if someone is able to contact you, you’re obligated to get back to them as soon as possible. Rather than think, breathe and reflect, the default is respond ASAP.Why is that? Why do we feel compelled to reply before really thinking through exactly what you want to say? Often, digital conversations can become complicated and convoluted because not enough thought goes into what should/needs to be said.

I waited a couple days to write this post, in order to reflect a little more on his words. I took a few deep breaths, got up, walked around and even reviewed a draft before hitting the ‘publish’ button.

A year and a half ago, I wrote about 4 degrees of impersonal communications.

Face-to-face communications (a first degree interaction) has no record, no evidence beyond the memory of the participants. Telephony (second degree) may have a record, such as an audio voice message. Email (3rd degree) gets circulated, over and over. Thanks to search engines and web-archiving tools, the web (4th degree) offers a permanent record.

I observed that:

Paradoxically, we seem to take more care in communications when the conversation can most easily be private and candid.

Some of Mark’s readers have said the solution is to unplug for a period – one day on; one day off – in order to recharge their batteries and experience the real world more fully.

I am not sure that is necessary. I like being connected while on the road; I find that being available is what lets me get away. For others, there is a real need to turn off the phone and Blackberry.

Whatever it takes, I hope you get to find that source of inspiration and invigoration as we move into the traditional vacation season.

Enjoy the Canada Day weekend… I’ll be taking a few days off. Fishing with my Blackberry at my side. Drinking some wine, eating some cheese, catching a few rays [can anyone name the movie?].

But being careful with my communications devices near water. They don’t float, you know.