27338554
submission
inject_hotmail.com writes:
I just caught wind of a story over at the Huff. Bell Canada has written a letter to the CRTC indicating that it will end traffic shaping on March 1, 2012. Although Bell says that this is due to "increasing popularity of streamed video and other traffic" and "P2P file-sharing, as a proportion of total traffic, has been diminishing", it's far more likely that they are interested in higher revenue. In all likelihood, the change of heart is based on the fact that Bell has moved most of their customer base to, and offer no alternative to, low-usage-cap UBB packages, which would ultimately generate more income or deter full usage of their service (and thus require less infrastructure investment).
5933857
submission
inject_hotmail.com writes:
I found this promising news over on Michael Geist's website: In an amazing display of wisdom and understanding, British Columbia (Canada) court of appeals (in a split decision) decided that it is not libelous to link to defamatory content.
The judge stated that "there is, in my view, no substantial difference between providing a web address and a mere hyperlink. Whether the hyperlink is a web address, as is often the case, or a more specific reference, both require a decision on the part of the reader to access another website, and both require the reader to take a distinct action, in the one case typing in a web address and in the other case clicking on the hyperlink. In other words, there is a barrier between the accessed article and the hyperlinked site that must be bridged, not by the publisher, but by the reader. The essence of following a hyperlink is to leave the website one was at to enter a different and independent website."
The case was brought about by B.C. businessman Wayne Crookes who claimed that p2pnet had damages his character by linking to websites with which he did not agree.
n.b. Presumedly, the websites with the actual content in question is outside of the purview of the canadian courts, however, p2pnet is not.
5851503
submission
inject_hotmail.com writes:
Hi, I'm a pigeon, and I'm faster than South Africa, at doing the Internet.
The results are in: it's faster to send your data via an airborne carrier than it is through the pipes.
As discussed yesterday, I just read over on Yahoo news that a company in South Africa called Unlimited IT, frustrated by terribly slow Internet speeds, decided to prove their point by sending an actual homing pigeon with a "data card" strapped to its leg from one of their offices to another while at the same time uploading the same amount of data to the same destination via their ISPs data lines. The media outlet reporting this triumph said that it took the pigeon just over 1 hour to make the 80km/50mile flight, whereas it took over 2 hours to transfer just 4% of that data.
5787137
submission
inject_hotmail.com writes:
Internet and law genius Michael Geist writes about some shinanigans by the cell phone carriers and the Canadian government in his column in The Star. Canadian tax payers funded a "Cell Phone Cost Calculator" so that the average person could theoretically wade through the disjointed and incongruent package offerings just to have to yanked a couple weeks before launch. Michael Geist suggests that the major cell carriers lobbied the appropriate public officials to have the program nixed because it would bite into their profit if the general people could make sense out of pricing and fees. Geist continues "Sensing that [Tony] Clement (Industry Minister) was facing pressure to block the calculator, Canadian consumer groups wrote to the minister, urging him to stick with it.". Moving forward Michael makes a novel suggestion, one that would show an immense level of understanding by the government — "With public dollars having funded the mothballed project, the government should now consider releasing the calculator's source code and enable other groups to pick up where the OCA (Office of Consumer Affairs) left off."
5436251
submission
inject_hotmail.com writes:
Bell Canada started hijacking non-existent domains (in the same manner as Rogers), redirecting NX-response queries to themselves, of course. Before opting-out, you get their wonderfully self-promoting and self-serving search page. When you "opt-out", your browser receives a cookie (isn't that nice) that tells them that you don't want the search page. It will still use their broken DNS server's non-NX response, but it will show a "Domain Not Found" mock-up page that they (I surmise) tailor to your browser-agent string. During the opt-out process they claim to be interested in feedback, but provide no method on that page (or any other page within the 'domainnotfound.ca' site) to contact them with complaints. They note that opting-in is "recommended" (!), and that "In order for opt-out to work properly, you need to accept a "cookie" indicating that you have opted out of this service. If you use a program that removes cookies, you will have to repeat this opt-out process when the cookie is deleted. The cookie placed on your computer will contain the site name: "www.domainnotfound.ca". Unfortunately most Bell Internet users won't understand the difference between their true NX domain response, and Bell's injected NX response.
My questions: Do they get paid per click? To whom shall I complain at Bell?
