The legislation is very complex, with exceptions layered on exceptions.  The CRTC, which is the prime enforcer of the law, has published some guidelines, will publish more, and will also publish FAQ’s.  So essentially, to understand the legislation, one has to look at the act, the regs, CRTC and perhaps Industry Canada guidelines and explanatory material.

That’s fine when dealing with the CRTC’s enforcement, but makes me nervous as one might rely on that, then be faced with an individual lawsuit or class action where a judge disagrees with the CRTC’s interpretation.

Coinciding with June as Brain Injury Awareness month, the Drive Only…Never Text  is a province-wide Brain Injury Awareness and Prevention Campaign aims to remind drivers that texting or talking on a cell phone while operating a motorized vehicle can lead to serious car crashes, brain injuries or death.

The Campaign is an initiative of a coalition of injury prevention advocates including the Ontario Brain Injury Association (OBIA), participating local community Brain Injury Associations, Ontario Ministry of Transportation, Ontario Trial Lawyers Association (OTLA), Southland Insurance, and Windsor Essex County Injury Prevention Coalition.

The coalition is asking drivers to make a pledge to Drive Only…Never Text. 

The Campaign kicked off on June 6 at a special event at Queen’s Park, attended by MPPs, D.O.N.T. campaign committee members, safety partners and spokespersons whose lives have been impacted by brain injuries caused by motor collisions.

Take the pledge Now. 

Some offers may be legitimate services for a fair price by a legitimate business. But others are for services you don’t need or from fly-by-night businesses. They also could be overpriced, of shoddy quality or outright scams.

Consumer protection legislation generally gives customers rights to cancel contracts made at the door or over the phone within a short period of time.

If you’re contacted this way, first think about whether you need the service. Ask the salesperson to leave you information or a quote if you’re being told the service is necessary, you aren’t sure you want it, you aren’t sure about the price or have even the mildest hesitation.

That gives you time to think about it, talk to someone else about it or get a second opinion or quote. A refusal to provide information, or an insistence that it must be agreed to on the spot is a sure sign that you should say no.

Common offers to be skeptical of are home repairs such as roof repairs and driveway sealing. A phone call saying that your computer is in need of repair is a common scam.

Energy savings plans also are common. Promises of significant savings are often made for things like the sale of natural gas or electricity — but they may be based on unrealistic assumptions, be misleading or lock you in in surprising ways.

A colleague recently brought to my attention a situation where an energy-savings thermostat was imprudently purchased over the phone. For a fixed monthly fee payable over several years, a new intelligent thermostat was installed, along with a promise of energy savings.

The buyer was required to sign a lengthy contract. It included significant costs for early termination, or if the house was sold and the buyer didn’t want to assume the contract. Removal of the thermostat required the homeowner to pay for a technician.

An attempt to contact customer service when a problem occurred with the thermostat did not go well.

Some quick math showed that within about three months you would have paid enough to buy a programmable thermostat. And within 18 months you would have paid enough to buy a new Nest learning thermostat, perhaps one of the most advanced, high-tech thermostats available.

The moral of the story is to be skeptical, and take time to think before you agree to buy anything that you didn’t set out to buy in the first place.

Much has been written about the NSA / Prism communications monitoring scandal over the last few days, including Simon’s recent post. Many things are unclear, and there are more questions than answers, but these things are clear to me.

Some people defend or trivialize it by saying that actual phone conversations and emails are not being monitored – just metadata. Metadata simply means data about data – it doesn’t mean that it is innocuous or public. The phone “just metadata” being tracked is equivalent to looking at one’s phone bill – numbers called, duration, etc. That definitely contains personal information which raises serious privacy issues. Reminds me of the “it’s just allergies” allergy medication ads.

Another comment that is supposed to make it better is that US citizens are not being targeted by the NSA. Who is targeted doesn’t change the fact that personal information on citizens is being collected and retained. And why is it somehow acceptable to spy on and violate the privacy of people in other countries?

Some ask why it is okay for Google to use knowledge it gains from searching your e-mails to sell advertising, but not okay for Google to pass it on to the government. There is a huge difference. Google serves up those ads without knowing or retaining the identity of the recipient. Privacy principles apply to contextual or behavioural advertising and contextual information (such as Google Now), and we can opt out of receiving it. Privacy obligations limit how long personal information is retained, who it can be disclosed to, and how it can be used. None of those concepts apply to NSA monitoring, and opting out is not an option. The devil is in the details when it comes to privacy, security and surveillance.

Edward Snowden, the person who leaked the information that started this, is apparently hiding in Hong Kong, and US authorities are eager to get him back to the US and charge him criminally. If he had done the same thing in certain countries in the Middle East or Asia, people in the US would be praise him as a hero and chastise the government for its retaliation against him. If those countries were doing the same surveillance as the NSA is, those in the US would demonize the state for its unacceptable assault on civil liberties and privacy.

I do not welcome the surveillance state.

On Thurs, June 6^th, 2013 Harrison Pensa participated in the United Way London and Middlesex Day of Caring at the Glen Cairn Community Resource Centre (GCCRC).

For the past several years, Harrison Pensa has volunteered to assist the Glen Cairn Community Resource centre. Since 2010, we have helped move them into their new location, cleaned up the property and assisted with landscaping. This year, we were paired with Western and painting lines for their parking lot while also providing some gardening touch-ups.  For those who could not participate with their time, HP held a basic needs drive with staff and lawyers donating food, baby formula and personal care products.

About Glen Cairn Community Resource Centre

Glen Cairn is a neighbourhood-based, multi-service, non-profit organization that offers a wide range of programs and services in the Glen Cairn/Pond Mills community of South East London. The organization works with families and service partners to build community capacity that helps address issues such as poverty, hunger, unemployment, family crisis and isolation. On average, 230 people per day access their programs and service.

http://www.gccrc.ca/

About the United Way Day of Caring

The United Way Day of Caring is about making a difference with more than just dollars. It’s about reminding people of the importance of volunteerism and the need to give back to their community. On one day each year, United Way of London & Middlesex matches volunteers from organizations and workplaces with various projects throughout the area.  Through many caring acts of volunteerism, local businesses, organizations and social service agencies are encouraged to work together for the betterment of our community. 

Harrison Pensa was very proud to send a team of volunteers to participate in the Thames Valley District School Board Special Olympics on Tues, June 4, 2013 at the TD Waterhouse Stadium. The three day event ran by Investing in Children saw over 900 athletes from 52 schools both Secondary and Elementary with developmental challenges.

It was rewarding for all volunteers at this event and it warmed my heart personally, to watch the kids walk into the stadium to the beat of the bag pipes during the opening ceremony, having their parents, siblings and volunteers cheer them on. The smiles on their faces showed everyone how happy and excited they were to be there. The Special Olympics Event has been around for 11 years and it is made possible through the supportive volunteers and local community sponsors

Every child was given a gold ribbon and all were cheered on by family, peer coaches and volunteers. By the end of the day, participant’s shirts were covered in ribbons, showing off their achievements for the day. To them it was all about being there and participating in some fun activities. Overall it was a great experience and very rewarding to see the happy faces.

Harrison Pensa is proud to be a supporter of the Special Olympics and we applaud all of the athletes, the organisers and volunteers who contributed to make this event a tremendous success. To us, you are all champions.

 Responsive design websites automatically adapt their configuration to the screen size you see it on. In the responsive W logo, the Museum changes the shape of the W to fit their use. To appreciate the cleverness and utility of this, look at the above video, the slideshow on the Wired article, and the designer’s explanation of the design.

As brilliant and useful as it is, it is an example of cutting edge thinking challenging current legal doctrine. Trade-marks lose protection when they stray very far off the version that is registered. That’s why, for example, if there is a vertical and a horizontal version of a trade-mark, both versions are usually registered. To protect a responsive mark like this, one would obviously register the main form. But it would also cause some reflection as to how far that protection extends to an infinite number of responsive versions, and how best to try to protect those.

One example is attempts to pass laws to require ISPs and telecommunications companies to retain data on customers for a fixed period of time just in case it might be helpful to police.  Denmark has had such a data retention law in place for many years.  The Danish Ministry of Justice has just concluded, however, that five years of extensive Internet surveillance have proven to be of almost no use to the police.  (I’m relying on a news story - the actual report is in Danish.)

“Session logging has caused serious practical problems,” the ministry’s staffers write in the report. “The implementation of session logging proved to be unusable to the police; this became clear the first time they tried to use [the data] as part of a criminal investigation.”

So the downside of retaining personal info is the cost to the service provider to do it (which is ultimately paid by consumers), the increased risk of it being misused or leaked, and the general privacy invasiveness.  And the upside is …?

The use of video, music and images can be a powerful tool. But we can’t forget that someone created them, and we can’t use them for commercial purposes without the copyright holder’s consent.

Using such material without permission can result in an expensive copyright fight, and merely stopping to use it after a demand won’t end a damage claim. Copyright is one of the rare instances where the owner doesn’t have to prove actual damages. Using one photograph found on the net for a commercial purpose can result in a damage award of thousands of dollars.

So how can this risk be avoided?

If you hire someone to create an image or video, get either a copyright assignment or permission in writing.

If you found the image somewhere, make sure you have permission to use it.

There are many sources on the Internet that offer photos and other material for our use based on an express license. Depending on the source, prices range from free to expensive.

Licence rights vary widely, though, and must be read carefully. There may be restrictions on how the image can be used, what it can be used for, how many times it can be used or the size or resolution. For example, it’s possible to have rights to use a photo in print, but not on the Web. Sometimes images can be used for personal or editorial use, but not for commercial use.

Consider not only what you want to use the image for now, but what you might want to do with it in the future. It’s not unusual for people to get into trouble when they acquire the rights to use an image for their Website and later decide to use it in a brochure. But they forget that when they bought the rights in the first place, they paid only for the Web rights.

iStockphoto is an example of a popular image source. iStockphoto’s licences that apply to most of their images are detailed on their website at www.istockphoto.com/help/licenses .

iStockphoto’s standard licence includes rights such as print ads, the Web, video, book covers and stationery. That would include use on things such as letterhead, business cards and general promotional material. Standard rights do not, however, include the right to re-sell the image or to use the image as part of a logo or trademark.

Ultimately, think before you click. Before you copy an image found on the Internet, obtain whatever permission you may need to use it for your own purposes. This additional step — though more time-consuming than a simple point and click — may save you a tremendous amount of grief, embarrassment, cost and time. Your future self will thank you.

This is not just a Microsoft issue.  Other providers of communication and data storage may also be able to do that for certain services (Facebook, Google).  A close read of various service provider terms of use and privacy policies show they have the option to review data.  It is usually intended as a way to control things like spam and fraud or violations of acceptable use policies.

Users will have to decide if they require true end to end encryption where the service provider can’t access data at all, or whether they can accept service provider access and rely on contractual promises on what the service provider will do with that.  The answer may vary depending on the sensitivity of the information being stored or communicated by the service, or legal or contractual obligations one has regarding the information.