Billy Barnes is a JD candidate at the University of Toronto. Did you know that Facebook will 'memorialize' a person's profile after their death? Until recently, not many people did. The feature has existed for a few years now, but it received minimal media attention until a member of the Facebook team posted about it […]
Brandon Evenson is a 2010 JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. He holds a degree in Computer Engineering from Queen’s University. Prior to attending Osgoode, Mr. Evenson consulted for some of the world’s leading technology firms in the area of contract risk and licensing compliance. Last Thursday, IP Osgoode hosted Chris Castle, managing partner […]
Amanda Carpenter is a JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. The recent Ontario case R. v. Cuttell, 2009 ONCJ 471 concerns the issue of online privacy, more specifically the issue as to what the privacy expectations are in regards to finding a user’s name and physical address based on their IP address. In this […]
Peter Waldkirch is a second year LL.B. student at the University of Ottawa. The Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Jennifer Stoddard, recently released her office's Annual Report to Parliament on the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). Several press outlets have covered the report. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's (OPC) press […]
Virgil Cojocaru is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. You are shopping online, surfing on Blockbuster. The next day one of your friends on Facebook messages you, “hey Dave, nice choice in movies!” What has just happened here? Some might argue this is just amicable banter between close friends. Others might quickly point […]
Three years ago, Netflix released a database containing the movie preferences of 480,000 users. Last year, Google released information on the viewing habits of millions of YouTube users to Viacom. In both of these and many other similar cases, the data was anonymized first---fields containing personally identifying information were removed. According to a paper by […]
In response to the complaint against Bell Sympatico (Bell) by the Canadian Internet policy and Public Interest Clinic, based at the University of Ottawa, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner produced a report of findings dated August 13, 2009. The complaint launched under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) alleged 1) that […]
This blog post reports on the report of findings made by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) against a US-based company called Accusearch, Inc., operating as Abika.com (Abika) for collecting and disclosing data on Canadian residents without their knowledge and consent. This decision is noteworthy since it recognizes the harm done to […]
Google knows what I'm doing 88% of the time. I've voluntarily given Facebook details of many aspects about my personal, work and school lives. These two companies probably know more about me than I do. And I'm not scared. I doubt Mark Zuckerberg will be emailing a---hypothetical, I assure you---compromising photo from my Facebook profile […]
The recent announcement of Yahoo and Microsoft's partnership may mean more choice and transparency for consumers, advertisers and publishers. It certainly means more competition in the world of online search and advertisements. Carol Bartz of Yahoo and Steven A. Ballmer of Microsoft finally put pen to paper on Wednesday, July 29, 2009, to announce this […]