Search Results for: casl

An article yesterday in the Washington Post by Larry Downes says that the net neutrality debate has missed the point.

How did we get here?  Despite the doomsday scares of a technology apocalypse, the current fight over who and how to regulate the Internet is not about the future of innovation, Internet access, broadband pricing, competition, fairness, or motherhood. It’s something much less exciting, though, depending on the outcome, much more dangerous.

Downes’ conclusion, “At best, a full or partial government takeover of Internet access would almost certainly slow future network evolution” sounds similar to what I wrote in 2008 in a post called “Can net neutrality limit innovation?”

Canada led the world in introducing enforceable net neutrality regulations when the CRTC introduced ITMP protocols for the implementation of internet traffic management in 2009.

Eight months earlier, in February 2009, in its Digital Britain strategy document, the UK said there was no need for net neutrality legislation. The UK was concerned that net neutrality regulation might prevent pricing innovation, differentiation of offers and serve to discourage investment in higher-speed access networks.

In its review of Mobile TV services, we see the CRTC’s regulatory forum being used to discourage precisely the kinds of pricing innovations that concerned the UK authorities. Downes wrote in his article in the Washington Post, “Just as taxicab companies are using regulators to stop Uber and Lyft, and hotels are lobbying for prohibitions on Airbnb, Netflix is using the net neutrality debate to improve its own bottom line.”

My views on Canada’s anti-spam law (CASL) are well known. I don’t think that it is a source of pride for Canada to have the democratic world’s toughest anti-spam regime. See, for example: “CASL is indefensible” and “CASL costs consumers“. As early as 2008, I warned “Worst case will see us get it wrong and introduce costs on legitimate businesses while doing nothing to stem the flow of the real garbage filling our inboxes.” In 2010, I wrote, “the bill would be better titled the Electronic Commerce Restrictions Act: it discourages many efficiencies that should be available to businesses of all sizes in reaching out to new customers.” CASL is yet another inhibitor for Canadian businesses to adopt digital technologies, and as I wrote earlier this summer, we should be wondering if CASL will limit the development of new technologies.

The CRTC’s own focus groups found that Canadians thought the Commission was “playing catch-up most of the time. The industry it regulates is changing so fast that the Commission never seems to be ahead of the change and is more reactive than proactive.”

This impression is a reality of attempting to regulate in the light-speed of our evolving digital economy.

Earlier this summer, Khosla Ventures had a “fireside chat” with Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They were asked “Can you imagine Google becoming a health company?” Brin replied:

Generally, health is just so heavily regulated. It’s just a painful business to be in. It’s just not necessarily how I want to spend my time. Even though we do have some health projects, and we’ll be doing that to a certain extent. But I think the regulatory burden in the U.S. is so high that think it would dissuade a lot of entrepreneurs.

The zeal with which regulators and legislators have intervened in Canada’s digital economy should be a concern to all of us. Is regulation protecting competition or competitors? Is regulation safeguarding consumers or building roadblocks for innovation?

In 2006, a Directive was sent to the CRTC [Order Issuing a Direction to the CRTC on Implementing the Canadian Telecommunications Policy Objectives]. At that time, Canada’s cabinet called for the CRTC to “rely on market forces to the maximum extent feasible as the means of achieving the telecommunications policy objectives, and when relying on regulation, use measures that are efficient and proportionate to their purpose and that interfere with the operation of competitive market forces to the minimum extent necessary to meet the policy objectives.”

Are we seeing regulatory measures from the CRTC and Industry Canada that are as “minimally intrusive and as minimally onerous as possible?”

As I wrote last year (echoing calls from two years earlier), we are long, long, long overdue for a fresh look at Canada’s telecom policy.

Some of the things I have been thinking about this week. Perhaps they will percolate into a bigger post over the summer. Otherwise, I thought I would share these thoughts with you. Please feel free to comment.

Over the past few years, Canada has enacted a number of regulatory and legislative constraints on the delivery of content over the internet. Some have been proclaimed (with pride) as being first in the world, such as internet traffic management, or among the most protective, in the case of anti-spam laws.

It may be worthwhile for some academic researchers to take a look at the impact of regulating internet content in Canada, from an economic perspective, social policy, cultural issues, etc.

Are we restricting the evolution of creative business models and innovation through regulation?

• Internet Traffic Management Regulatory Policy (Net Neutrality)
• Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (CASL)
• New Media Exemption Order
• NFL Mobile Content Decision
• Others? (such as digital copyright, lawful access, etc.?)

A little over 5 years ago, I wrote a piece that I called “Twitter is like Coffee Crisp“.

After a Twitter exchange I had this morning with Treasury Board President (and former Industry Minister) Tony Clement, that article came to mind.

I guess it started with me asking why Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) was exempted from the Treasury Board’s red tape reduction rules – rules that call for any new government red-tape to be offset by removing an older administrative requirement.

The Minister replied to this post with two different tweets:

and

Now, in reality, I don’t believe CASL will save anyone any money.

The “billions” to which the Minister is referring is the cost of spam and malicious electronic content. On the government’s Fight Spam website, we see a reference to “spam” as “often a source of scams, computer viruses and offensive content that takes up valuable time and increases costs for consumers, business and governments.”

The introduction of CASL doesn’t mean that we can all stop paying for anti-virus software. CASL won’t reduce the burden on IT departments to invest in countermeasures to safeguard corporate digital assets. Offensive, malicious and harmful content will continue to infect our computers and will threaten even more devices as our “things” become networked, as attendees of The 2014 Canadian Telecom Summit heard two weeks ago from a number of presenters.

CASL will not reduce the costs of safeguarding our digital property any more than 3000 year old laws against stealing have provided financial relief for the costs of insurance and security systems for my home.

So please, don’t tell me that CASL “saves SMEs billions.” I tweeted that I would love to see that economic study.

As to his other tweet that asks “where’s the red tape? You send an email asking recipients to agree to emails“, the Minister must not be aware that CASL prohibits such emails. That was why we were inundated with such requests over the past few weeks and Mr. Clement noted in one of his tweets.

So, a lot of companies got their records caught up and cleaned up and can now send email updates to folks who have explicitly opted into their mailing lists.

But the Canadian Federation of Independent Business says that only 15% of its 109,000 small business owners are aware of all the requirements and 62% of them have taken no steps to comply. So the 5 years to prepare didn’t help Canada’s existing million small businesses prepare. And Industry Canada numbers show there are an average of 100,000 new small businesses created every year. They never had the advantage of getting a CASL-free email blast to try to get explicit authorization to send emails. Just asking for permission is a violation of CASL’s rules.

I suspect that what most Canadians want is a quite different law from what we got.

I agree. But CASL goes far beyond stopping what most of us consider to be spam. CASL goes beyond “constantly send[ing] unwanted emails“. It doesn’t allow a single unwanted email. even if the content is not fraudulent, the sender is not hiding their identity, the sender observes all unsubscribe requests. [For an excellent description of CASL, let me recommend Barry Sookman’s recent CASL Unofficial FAQ blog post.]

So, I agree that our anti-spam laws should be targeting those who have a business model to constantly send unwanted emails. I also have zero sympathy for them. But it is interesting that the politicians gave themselves an exemption from CASL. Was it a matter of them recognizing the burden of the law? Is there a reason why members of parliament are allowed to have a business model that permits them to “constantly send unwanted emails”?

As I replied to Mr. Clement, this talking point (which I have seen before on Twitter) loses its credibility when spoken by people who are exempted from conforming with the law.

Mr. Clement claims that “35 million consumers disagree with [me].” I doubt it. But I would like to hear from both sides of this debate.

Mr. Clement, as a former Industry Minister, is very familiar with this file. As he noted, the law was passed by Parliament. But, I am left wondering if we Canadians are stuck with digital policies that can fit into 140-character tweets.

Yes, spam and harmful electronic messages cost billions to the economy. But let’s be clear: CASL is not going to remove those costs and “save SMEs billions.” Yes, we should try to protect Canadians from constant unwanted emails. But CASL over-reaches beyond that objective.

On the Industry Canada Fight Spam website, we see noble objectives for CASL:

The general purpose of Canada’s Anti-spam Legislation (CASL) is to encourage the growth of electronic commerce by ensuring confidence and trust in the online marketplace. To do so, the Act prohibits damaging and deceptive spam, spyware, malicious code, botnets, and other related network threats.

I agree with these objectives completely. But we all need to ask: “How did we stray so far?” What we have implemented will not encourage the growth of electronic commerce. It prohibits new businesses in your neighbourhood from announcing their presence electronically, even though such an announcement is completely legal in print form.

CASL censors communications in digital form that are otherwise completely legal. That should concern us all.

How did our members of Parliament lose sight of these objectives when framing the legislation?

As I wrote 5 years ago, Twitter is my Coffee Crisp. It makes a nice light snack, but we still need the main course enabled by this lengthier blog post – much lengthier, in this particular case.

I look forward to your comments.

Each year, during our opening remarks at The Canadian Telecom Summit, Michael Sone and I deliver our observations on the state of the industry.

Here is what we said earlier today:

Twenty two years of competitive telecommunications and today’s landscape of services, of providers, of modalities of communication looks nothing like it did in 1992. In fact, in many ways, telecom of the early-‘90s had more in common with the environment of the mad men and women of 1950s and ‘60s than it does with the all-digital, hyper-connected, socially-networked world of 2014. The Internet of Everything is the reality that cuts across and impacts… everything… literally. And we’ll hear all about that this week.

And yet, while wireless services flourish with new gadgets and a never-ending stream of new apps and services raising connectivity and instantaneous communication to new heights, the promise of new competition in mobile services, made possible by the AWS spectrum set-aside 5 years ago, is on the verge of collapse as independent new entrants failed to raise capital for the 700 MHz auction.

Still, each year we observe that all of us continue to use our various forms of communications more than ever; and each year we continue to increase our consumption of bits, of radio spectrum, of fiber capacity.

This continues to be the trend and it continues to raise substantive policy issues as service providers – new entrant and incumbent alike – try to stay ahead of demand and seek to invest in newer, faster, higher capacity technologies.

How do we create the right policy framework to attract and incent continued investment in Canadian telecommunications?

How do we provide a stable, predictable regulatory and policy environment? On this front, as we witnessed last summer, Ottawa failed miserably.

On both sides of the river, our regulator and policy makers in Ottawa and Gatineau are failing to provide the leadership needed to guide the development of Canada’s digital economy.

Regulatory decisions and government policy announcements show up nearly instantly as fundraising messages from the Conservative Party. It is easy to become cynical from such behavior. Last November, at its annual convention, Conservatives were told by Senator Gerstein, their chief fundraiser, that “message creates momentum creates money”.

Populism may drive healthy political donations, but questionable policy and legislation.

CASL: Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation, is certain to discourage the use of e-commerce, not promote digital adoption.

Canada’s Digital Strategy, released a couple months ago, is more of an embarrassment, not a source of inspiration. While it was encouraging to see the Minister extend funding last week for Computers for Schools, there has been a failure in leadership at the CRTC and Industry Canada to explore solutions for getting low income Canadians engaged in the digital economy. Kids need computers at home to do homework.

How do we encourage continued investment in spectrum and digital infrastructure? How do we ensure that spectrum continues to be made available in a manner that creates an appropriate balance between the various stakeholders’ interests?

How do we balance the need to build more towers with local residents who crave 5-bars of signal, just as long as the tower can’t be seen within eyesight of their homes.

These issues are as relevant to this year’s event as they have ever been.

The sector continues to generate blockbuster news and business deals that grace the headlines. Some of Canada’s leading communications companies have had changes in leadership over the past few months – we are pleased that a number of the new CEOs are joining us over the next 3 days.

Whether it is the convergence deal like Rogers and the NHL, Bell and Astral or business transactions like TELUS – Public Mobile, companies are continuing to push the limits, risking billions of dollars in private sector capital, testing new business models for the digital age, to deliver new services to consumers and gain competitive advantages.

We need to create the right conditions for Canada to lead in a global digital economy:

• We need to drive a greater degree of digital inclusiveness for all Canadians, young and old, urban and rural, regardless of their economic station.
• We need programs to increase digital literacy and access for disadvantaged Canadians.
• We need to drive increased adoption of Information and Communications Technology in business
• We need to improve ICT adoption in all dealings with government, especially in improving the quality and efficiency of health care delivery, and
• Our customers need to be confident that they can engage online securely and with their privacy safeguarded.

As we said last year, it may be up to those of us in this room, gathered here at The Canadian Telecom Summit, representing the leading stakeholders in Canada’s innovation agenda, to develop and impart the vision to create a Digital Canada.

There is extensive media coverage of this year’s event and you can follow updates in real time using Twitter hashtag #CTS14.

A colleague pointed out an article in the Ottawa Business Journal that indicated that on March 7, Canada’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology began a study of Broadband and Internet access across Canada. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce was the only witness at that particular session. In the introduction to its testimony, Scott Smith of the Chamber observed:

Canadian business is not online and this is despite the fact that Canada has some of the most advanced and available telecommunications infrastructure in the world. … So the story I want to tell you is one of adoption, or lack of adoption, not about barriers to access. With our relatively small population in a huge land mass, the Canadian market is essentially California with a distribution challenge. Yet Canadians continue to be among the first users in the world to benefit from next generation network.

Access to networks isn’t the problem, even though solving this non-issue continues to be a focus for many politicians at various levels of government.

It is adoption that we need to address.

Digital literacy and adoption are much more difficult challenges than throwing money at regional broadband infrastructure. How do we convince households to get computers and subscribe to connectivity; how do we get businesses to go online and adopt e-business strategies? The Chamber of Commerce identified market certainty as an issue

One of the committee members asked why businesses aren’t investing in ICT, after all, it would seem to be for their own benefit. Unfortunately, the Chamber did not have any studies to cite. I wonder to what extent there are government policies that inadvertently discourage adoption of ICT.  Besides CASL, which I have highlighted at length, are there other regulations that discourage e-commerce and ICT adoption.

How do we ensure that individual citizens are not left behind? Among those households with a computer, virtually all have broadband connections. However, nearly 20% of Canadian households have no computer. How do we reach them?

As might be expected, half of the households with no computers are households in the lowest income quintile.

Statistics Canada data has been showing that Canada actually has a bigger urban broadband problem than rural, yet no programs appear to have targeted this segment.

On these pages, I have written about ideas to start with targeting computer and connectivity solutions for low income households with school aged children [see, for example, here]. This needs the participation and cooperation from the carrier community and may be well suited for a network of public private partnerships.

Getting computers into all households with school aged kids would be a good starting point for increasing digital adoption in Canada. Even for those of us who have been on-line since the earliest days of networking, our kids can be a leading source of technical support and improved household digital literacy.

We will see what direction the INDU study takes as the committee continues to explore Broadband and Internet Access in Canada. There will be an outstanding panel at The 2013 Canadian Telecom Summit looking at building an innovation economy. The session will be moderated by Namir Anani (President & CEO, ICTC) and it features Chris Hodgson (Canadian Retail and Tech Practice Lead, Google), Tracey Jennings (Canadian Leader: TICE, PwC), Warren Jestin (SVP and Chief Economist, Scotiabank), Ron Styles (President & CEO, SaskTel), Joan Vogelesang (President and CEO, Toon Boom Animation) and John Weigelt (National Technology Officer, Microsoft Canada).

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