The Canadian Human Rights tribunal has ruled against an ISP finding it liable for hate messages hosted on their site in what is believed to be a precedent setting case.

Specific findings included a determination that material sent over the Internet is a ‘communication’ within the meaning of the Canadian Human Rights Act and finding an ISP, Affordable Space.com, responsible for the illegal material that it knowingly hosted.

The CHRC levied fines of $13,000 and damages of $5,000 in connection with the case.

Warren Kinsella, a Toronto based lawyer and author of Web of Hate, says that the case shows that the CHRC has been willing to step up and apply regulation to parts of the internet despite the CRTC’s unwillingness to do so.

On one hand, it is good to see the CHRC dealing with such matters. However, their jurisdiction likely does not apply to websites hosted in Canada. In our humble view, the CRTC has to take on the role of keeping material found to be illegal out of Canada.

That viewpoint will be explored at The Canadian Telecom Summit in its special panel looking at “Illegal Content on the Internet.”

The saga of Nortel’s accounting woes seems to have more sequels than Rocky… except that the underdog – in our case, the shareholders – never seems to win.

We are now hearing that the the restated numbers from 2003 and 2004 and early 2005 were wrong – again. “This revenue is real – it was recognized in the wrong periods”

Help me understand this, please! Nortel overstated their earnings – they held up their financials for a year, supposedly to get their house in order. Now, we are being told “oops, we still didn’t get it right?”

Can someone tell me what the auditors are getting paid for? Exactly what did their sign off mean? Why did the shareholders pay off some other shareholders (and mainly lawyers) to the tune of $2.5B, rather than the directors and the auditors who apparently fell asleep on the job.

It seems to be too easy an excuse – like the story of the new CEO who finds 3 envelops in his desk. At Nortel, Envelop 2 seems to say “Blame the old accounting.”

The CRTC is bent on regulating VoIP offerings by the Canadian incumbents, whether it needs to or not.

In its Decision today, a number of glaring inconsistencies continue to emerge from the way VoIP is regulated in Canada.

From the beginning, the CRTC has taken the position that it is regulating VoIP because VoIP is a new technology for an old service. Since local phone service is regulated, VoIP-based local service will be regulated. If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck…

New services shouldn’t have to match plain old phone service in order to fit a regulatory model. Unless the telcos are forcing people to give up their old services, phone companies should be able to offer new services that they think will sell – not be forced to perform contortions in order to artificially fulfill objectives for which the new service was never designed.

By this logic, iPods would need to be modified to play vinyl records (kids – ask your parents about those black dinner plate sized things in the basement). Digital Satellite Radio would need to conform exactly to the same regulations as AM and FM.

In today’s decision, the CRTC acknowledges that Bell’s access independent VoIP service doesn’t really quack the same or waddle the same as plain old phone service. For some reason, they are refusing to acknowledge that access independent VoIP might really be some other kind of bird.

Internet service providers in Israel will have to reveal the identities of people posting anonymous “talkback” responses on Web sites. The ruling applies if a court determines that the comments raise a concern of criminal libel with malicious intent.

Nimrod Kozlovsky, an expert on Internet law with Israel’s Ministry of Justice, said that the ruling shows that the Internet cannot be construed as a space beyond the law.

From the surfers’ perspective, talkbacks are considered an area in which the rules of the game don’t apply. If until today we related to talkbacks as a protected space where no one could chase us, the court came and said – here too, there are rules of the game.

A variety of courts around the world have held that publishing information on a website has much in common with publishing in print media.

A session at The 2006 Canadian Telecom Summit will look at two specific types of illegal content on the internet, hate and child exploitation, and discuss issues surrounding the enforcement of laws.

My friend Ed Antecol sent me a note about the WiFi project in Philadelphia.

A week ago, Philadelphia released information about the terms they negotiated with Earthlink in awarding the contract to build their pioneering WiFi umbrella over the city. It is significant because the Philadelphia approach is to gain the benefits at no cost or risk to the taxpayers.

The contracts call for EarthLink to rent space on 4,000 city light posts for its equipment, and pay the city $74 annually per light post – for a total of nearly $300,000 a year.

EarthLink will give Wireless Philadelphia 5% of its access revenue to be used to provide 10,000 computers and training to children and low-income households. EarthLink will also provide Internet access for up to 25,000 low-income households at $9.95 a month, and give the city government free or discounted access.

Earthlink is also providing free hotspots in 22 sites designated as tourist zones.

Contrast that deal with Toronto Hydro’s WiFi announcement yesterday, which targets the downtown business core, with no special attention on the disadvantaged segment of the community.

With budget shortfalls in so many Ontario cities, we can learn how to truly develop private-public partnerships from our neighbours to the south.