There has been plenty of evidence that, despite the claims of the entertainment industry, money is not being lost hand over fist due to piracy but in fact has simply shifted focus to others areas of industry (gaming for example). Hopefully the Canadian government will realize that they have a simple choice. They can either criminalize all Canadians for participating in a harmless activity (one we’ve all been doing for well over a decade now) or they can instead choose to protect the Canadian people. You know, the people who vote and choose who gets to stay in power next election? Yeah, those people… as in ALL Canadians. Oh, and don’t forget that tax we’ve been paying for a very long time now already. Downloading is a victimless crime for the most part. There is no way in hell I’d ever have spent a single dime to buy 99% of what I’ve downloaded (couldn’t afford to even if I wanted) and that fact wouldn’t change even if I didn’t have an internet connection. You can’t lose money you never would have gotten in the first place. The industry knows this even though they would never admit it and it is the sole reason they want these draconian laws; to force people to pay one way or another and keep their dying business model afloat. You know what I would like an answer to (one the government should be asking)? Given how many years pirating has been going on and the huge losses the entertainment industry claims are due to it, why haven’t they gone out of business already? Shouldn’t they have gone under already rather than be reporting record profits year after year? Something smells pretty fishy.

As for the anti-spam laws, I can only pray that they will finally do the trick. I’ve long felt that spam (both phone and e-mail) needs to be dealt with far more harshly if it is ever going to be brought under control. That opt out list was a compete joke so please do better on your next try. Pretty please? Having to wade through 200+ messages every day just to find the one or two that aren’t spam is a complete nightmare. Spam blockers are mostly useless when it comes to sheer volume and constantly changing ones e-mail address is far from an ideal fix (and a temporary one at that). Same goes with phone calls. There are days when all I can do is unplug the thing to keep from ringing for the millionth time that day. Strangely, snail-mail spam seems to be a lot better these days, at least where I live. Mostly it’s pizza coupons and coupons for other food outlets, which I don’t mind seeing as their actually useful.

First we had providers jumping on the DPI bandwagon, raising questions about privacy and illegal search, as well as anti-competitive practices.

Then we get “targeted marketing” companies (NebuAd, Phorm, etc.) wanting to install their DPI at the providers’ front gates.

We start to get some noise from the NDP about the wide implications of such activities as they pertain to privacy, fair competition, and net neutrality.

Now comes the BS that we somehow NEED to REQUIRE providers to snoop on us?!?

Naturally, if this goes through, we will have to simply “accept” DPI as a normal part of our lives, as that’s what would be needed for providers to perform what is being proposed.

I’m sure this would make Bell and Rogers extremely happy, as they would then have the complete freedom to install all the DPI processes they want, without any further oversight or argument from the Public. (Of course, they would only cooperate if they got to install it themselves, and they will get their way on that one.)

And, while the Government is busy trying to seal our internet’s fate with Police State policies, they also want us to believe that, somehow, NET NEUTRALITY will be given a fair shake??!?

These jokers need to be ejected from our Parliament! It’s obvious they’re free-basing something and can’t be trusted with the future of our Internet.