Information & Ethics committee  I think even our federal commissioner has already identified alternative mechanisms for educating. The office now has a blog, for example. The issues I'm talking about wouldn't be raised on the blog, but it provides the opportunity to get the information out into the community an

Information & Ethics committee  I think because it hasn't been touched in 25 years, you're on the right track. Experience to date has left many discouraged about the prospect for broader reform, so improvements, even if incremental, are better than nothing at all. We've literally had nothing for decades.

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks for the invitation to come and speak. My name, as you heard, is Michael Geist. I am a law professor at the University of Ottawa, where I hold the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law. I'm also a syndicated weekly columnist on law and

Industry committee  I wouldn't have described the exceptions as narrow, actually, but quite the opposite. I believe the exceptions are very broad, and that's perhaps an attempt to strike the right balance.

Industry committee  Sure. With respect to Australia, respectfully, my reading is different. I have the Australian act in front of me, and it refers to commercial electronic messages in much the same way. I don't see a significant difference on the definitional side. Part 2, subsection 16(1), of

Industry committee  That's right.

Industry committee  My understanding is that in Utah you had widespread abuse or attempted abuse of that provision. I think it was prisoners who were sending messages and then hoping to use that as an opportunity to file suit. While I recognize that this seems like a concern, the experience we've

Industry committee  I know that under “do not call”, educational institutions have fallen under charitable organizations, so they might well fall under the same here.

Industry committee  That's right, but our bill—I'll try to find the specific section—contains an exception for, I believe, registered charities. To my knowledge, just about every single university, for example, that might want to contact an alumnus is a registered charity. I know that's the approach

Industry committee  No, and I'm sorry if I wasn't sufficiently clear. I'm supportive of Bill C-27. My concern lies with the potential to water down the legislation. I think it does a pretty good job of striking the balance, and my fear is that some of the concerns, many of which I think are not vali

Industry committee  It's a great question. I think in some ways there are already frameworks in place to deal with many of these international issues. Canada has been a participant in them. Even dating back to when we were sitting as a spam task force, groups called the London Action Plan were bring

Industry committee  My sense was that the minister recognized it was still early days and that there perhaps have been some growing pains with respect to the do-not-call list. I think it's more serious than that. There are more than six million numbers registered on the do-not-call list. There have

Industry committee  I think I'm quoted in that same piece. Another one of the concerns was that someone might want to buy software from a software vendor, and if it was outside of the 18 months, the person they're buying from might report the consumer as a spammer, which I didn't think was a parti

Industry committee  Sure, and I think that's absolutely right. Quite frankly, we experienced the concern as a task force ourselves. It was a year-long process. When we started the focus was almost exclusively on spam, and by the end of the 12 months, issues around spyware and phishing had really eme

Industry committee  I will admit, it's something I haven't much seen in legislation. I found it was a surprising inclusion in this bill, having worked through 68 pages, to find at the very end provisions that would effectively kill the do-not-call list and replace it with this legislation. My own v