Why did the Toronto Star run a New York Times story yesterday about Psiphon, the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab project to circumvent internet censorship? After all, we wrote in May about the Star running an more in-depth story by its own staff writer more than 6 months ago. Was this a new form of newspaper recycling?

The NYT article appears to be timed to preview the software’s launch, scheduled for this Friday.

I noticed an interesting juxtaposition of two recent news stories. On one hand, we had an announcement last week about Canada’s major ISPs announce an initiative to begin filtering illegal content from their network; and, this week we’ll watch the launch of Psiphon software, designed to help criminals circumvent such filtering.

The original Toronto Star story in May raises some interesting issues of research ethics:

Sometimes the lab performs tests remotely, taking control of unprotected computers inside the censoring country without permission. This poses an ethical controversy, but Deibert says it’s for the greater good: “We don’t worry about that too much.”

The Lab even has “black boxes,” mini-sized computers that can be “planted” discreetly inside these countries to run the tests. “This kind of research is illegal in almost every country we do it in”

Is ‘criminal’ too harsh a term for Psiphon users? By the Lab’s own admission, The content being ‘liberated’ is otherwise illegal in the country of the user.

To what extent is Psiphon going to be used to evade the efforts of Project Cleanfeed Canada, thereby liberating child exploitation images from the repressive regime here that seeks to limit internet freedom.

Last May, Michael Geist expressed his support for Psiphon:

“These initiatives are exciting,” says Michael Geist, an expert in law and the Internet at the University of Ottawa. Any ethical qualms in using Psiphon to circumvent the censorship regulations of a foreign country should be put to rest, he says. “There are international instruments that override even sovereign governments, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

But Professor Geist is supportive of the Cleanfeed project, and continues to host a lively dialog on his blog.

Will as much research effort be expended on technology solutions to help enforce what democracies define to be illegal content?

The issue of illegal content on the internet is one that I have discussed a number of times on this site. Still, there are a lot of difficult issues that need to be explored and that merit discussion.

Michael Geist is hosting a good conversation in the wake of this week’s announcement about Canadian ISPs finally adopting the UK Cleanfeed technology, based on a blacklist to be supplied by Cybertip.ca.

The Canadian Telecom Summit will again explore the issue of dealing with Illegal Content on the Internet.

There continue to be many serious issues to be explored.

The CRTC issued a Decision yesterday that allows increased price flexibility for the incumbent telephone companies for services other than VoIP.

Earlier this year, the CRTC granted substantial pricing flexibility for ILEC VoIP services.

Yesterday, the CRTC added conventional local phone service.

The Commission notes that the use of rate ranges will permit an ILEC to change rates within an approved range, at any time, without delay and without the requirement to file a tariff application and obtain Commission approval, thus reducing regulatory burden for both the ILECs and the Commission.

Rate reductions will be subject to CRTC restrictions on price de-averaging, so the telephone companies cannot target price changes.

Consumer groups were concerned about the impact on contracts. The groups asked for consumers to be given an opportunity to terminate their contracts if rates increased. In denying this request,

The Commission notes that there is no such requirement in the case of price changes applicable to single-rate tariffs.

I think the CRTC forgot an important point. Under the former single-rate tariffs, the process included notice of a price change, especially price increases, and often an opportunity for consumer groups to intervene.

Under the new framework, consumers apparently will just have to accept a price change with no recourse.

Let’s look at a potential scenario.

Assume a current service is $30 per month, but has costs of only $20. Now, the telephone company drops rates down to the floor. People love the service and love the rate even more. They sign-up in droves. The contract says rate is subject to CRTC approved tariffs. With a big piece of the market now under contract, the telco decides to raise the price. If the customers are lucky, ther service falls into the category of capped services, so there is an upper limit on the price range. Uncapped services will have no upper pricing constraint. Rates could go through the roof and consumers are stuck with substantial price increases.

You might try to argue that consumers will simply switch providers when the contract comes due. Don’t forget – this is happening in a market that is not subject to sufficient competition to justify forbearance. So it certainly isn’t going to discipline such behaviour by the ILEC.

Take a look at what happened with Centrex this past summer. Look at 25% system access fee hikes.

Long terms contracts for consumers are looking more like signed blank cheques. Where are the consumer safeguards?

Canada’s largest internet service providers have announced that they are installing filters to block illegal child exploitation content from their customers.

The participating ISPs, which so far include Bell Aliant, Bell Canada, MTS Allstream, Rogers, SaskTel, Shaw Communications Inc., TELUS, and Videotron. The ISPs, all of which are carriers, have the overwhelming majority of Canadian internet access subscribers.

It is my understanding that the carriers do not intend to apply to the CRTC for authority to implement “Project Cleanfeed Canada”.