Are you being tracked?
It has recently been reported this week that a Fitness Tracking app, Strava, is able to display locations of American military bases from Syria to Afghanistan due to the use of Fitbits by American soldiers when exercising. The bases are even more prominent on the tracking app because they are in deserted areas where no […]
More on Net Neutrality!
How timely with the Grammy’s tonight to discuss net neutrality! To be honest, I had heard a lot of buzz about it for some time now, but didn’t really know what it was. I found the Burger King experiment/explanation very accessible and fun! I also found the following link very helpful to grasp the concept […]
A clear explanation of (parts of) Net Neutrality from Burger King
As we will see later in the course “net neutrality” is a concept that has multiple meanings. Many of its frequently contested interpretations are projected McGufins that communications activists, pundits, regulators, and lawyers chase around in concentric spirals of ever deepening confusion. Into the fray (of all corporate persons) comes Burger King who brilliantly and […]
Confirmed (almost): U.S. Super Bowl commercials will be on television in Canada this year
As we all pretty well predicted last class, there will be U.S. commercials available through U.S. stations on cable whose $5M per 30 second ads won’t be simultaneously substituted in Canada during Super Bowl LII. Or almost certainly anyways. Now that the Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear Bell’s leave to appeal application on […]
Question of the Week (Class 4): Should there be “should’s” in S. 3 of the Broadcasting Act?
As you may have already noticed S.3 of the Broadcasting Act (S.C. 1991, c. 11) is bit different from most other statutory provisions you might have come across. It is rather full of the word “should”. This is in stark contrast to most statutory drafting norms and, interestingly for our purposes, quite different in style if not […]
Does cord-cutting save money?
Fed up with the rising cost of cable television, consumers have increasingly “cut the cord” on traditional cable television. I’ve been interested in seeing how these services compare and what developments have since occurred in the area of internet television. This is where YouTube TV comes in. YouTube TV offers the same channels as your […]
Social Media Regulating Us?
The central question of our last class was “What should we do about fake news?” This ties into the core question of the course: “To regulate, or not to regulate?” It seems that the Canadian approach, following Grant v. TorStar [2009] allows for an “arguably more flexible and more sophisticated” approach, by allowing for the […]
An App that Detects Net Neutrality Violations
David Choffnes, a researcher from Northeastern University, has created an app that detects net neutrality violations. The app, called Wehe, is designed to test download speeds from seven apps: YouTube, Amazon, NBCSports, Netflix, Skype, Spotify, and Vimeo. Wehe uses your device to exchange traffic recorded from real, popular apps like YouTube and Spotify—effectively making it look as […]
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