Welcome to Gahtan’s Technology and Internet Law Blog

With the support of the Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a new grass-roots organization, Online Rights Canada, was launched last Friday in order to give Canadians a new voice in critical technology and information policy issues.

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The del.icio.us blog announced that the service has been acquired by Yahoo! This is a good move for Yahoo!

The New York Times has a story about Chinese “gaming factories” that employ people to play massively multiplayer online games (such as World of Warcraft), day in and day out, by killing onscreen monsters and winning battles, harvesting artificial gold coins and other virtual goods as rewards that, as it turns out, can be transformed into real cash. The pay off comes from selling the virtual assets to online gamers who lack the time and patience to work their way up to the higher levels of gamedom are willing to pay the young Chinese here to play the early rounds for them.

Yesterday, John D. Gregory ( General Counsel - Policy Division, Ministry of the Attorney General) gave a presentation at the Toronto Computer Lawyers Group (TCLG) on the topic of Internet Jurisdiction. He promised to post a copy of his presentation on the TCLG website within a few days.

IT.Can’s new blog site reports on the recent CIRA decision in Enterprise Rent-A-Car Company v. Ebenezer Thevasagayam (pdf). The respondent had registered the disputed domain name, entreprise.ca, in 2003 along with 56 other domain names. The Complainant had argued that “entreprise” is the French language equivalent of its trade name and trademarks.

Two of the three panelists held that the domain name was confusingly similar to the Complainant’s mark and that the Complainant had provided sufficient initial proof of bad faith by noting the links on the respondent’s web site to competitors of the Complainant.

Representatives from various countries that had sought to break up some of the US control over the Internet reached an accord on Tuesday night that leaves the supervision of domain names and other technical resources unchanged for the time being.

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Well, not really. Actually, I like shopping at Home Depot.

However, someone who thinks differently recently prevailed in a UDRP brought by Home Depot. The Respondent was represented by the University of San Francisco Internet and Intellectual Property Justice Clinic.

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Ontario is looking at designating the text of statutes and regulations posted on the e-laws website an “official copy” of the law. An official copy is presumed to be an accurate statement of the law, unless the contrary is proved. The e-laws webist is a joint project of the Ministry of Government Services and the Ministry of the Attorney General.

Bill 14 2005 - An Act to promote access to justice by amending or repealing various Acts and by enacting the Legislation Act, 2005. Thanks to IT.Can for the heads up.