Welcome to Gahtan’s Technology and Internet Law Blog

According to Reuters, SEX.COM has been sold for about US$12 million in cash and stocks. This tops the US$7.5 million paid for BUSINESS.COM during the dot.com frenzy. The site currently makes money selling banner advertising but the buyers are expected to add other revenue generating services to the site.

The New York Times has an interesting article titled A Growing Web of Watchers Builds a Surveillance Society. David Shenk points out how technology is making us increasingly susceptible to surveillance and monitoring.

Philips has finally released its VP5500 Wi-Fi VOIP handset. The VP-5500 is powered by Linux and lets users make live video calls using its built-in VGA camera (640×480 resolution). The 30 FPS video is displayed on a 2.2″ color LCD supporting 64k colors. Not sure of availability outside of The Netherlands or whether the phone is compatible with SIP service providers other than Dutch telecommunications operator KPN’s consumer VoIP (Voice-over-IP) service called InternetPlusBellen.

Thanks to Tom Keating’s VOIP and Gadgets Blog for the heads up.

I recently received a shipment of some wi-fi equipment ordered from a California-based supplier. The total came to USD$168 plus US$23.80 for UPS shipping (for a total of USD$191.80). However, that’s not the end of the story. You see, UPS collects the PST and GST (provincial and federal Canadian sales tax) due on the product. First there’s the tax on the base product (C$29.29), then there’s a brokerage fee that UPS adds in order to collect the GST (C$39.10) and then there’s a sales tax on the brokerage fee (C$2.74). The add on is another C$71.13. So, in order to compensate UPS for collecting C$29.29 in taxes, Canadians must pay UPS another $43. The same thing does not occur when something is ordered from another province. In that case, the purchaser is required to self assess the sales tax (at least the provincial portion - the GST portion is collected and remitted by the vendor assuming they are required to be registered to collect GST). So the system discriminates against purchases made from a US vendor as compared to a vendor in another province. That is the the Canadian version of free trade with the US. Not so free after all.

Its election day in Canada. Thought I’d crack open the Election Act and review some of the relevant provisions contained in Division 9, which deals with communications. Specifically, Canada does not permit the transmission of election results, in a particular electoral district, prior to the close of all polling stations in that district. However, I wonder just how useful some of these provisions really are given the number of US and foreign news stations that Canadians can receive, and given the increasing proportion of news that individuals now receive through the Internet.

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While Google is resisting turning over search records, what they should really be doing is telling its users:

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David Fraser writes about potential legal conflicts for bloggers. He has also issued an invitation to other legal bloggers to initiate a discussion on the subject.

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The US federal government is asking a California court to force Google Inc. to turn over information about usage of the company’s search engine for finding pornography on the Internet. The government says it needs those Google usage records to prepare its defense in a 1998 lawsuit brought against it by the American Civil Liberties Union ACLU challenging the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) law. Google is resisting.

From Computerworld