Black Friday Week Deals
The Black Friday sales have begun at Amazon.ca 
, EntertainmentEarth.com
, JR.com
, Musician’s Friend
, Tigerdirect.ca
and Tigerdirect.com
.
The rest of the online retailers I buy from appear to be waiting for Friday itself to offer up their Black Friday sales.
Free Shipping Offers Added
I’ve been getting quite a few emails from retailers in regards to their free shipping offers so I thought I’d compile them for the site.
These free shipping offers are of course for Canadians only and the listing is somewhat limited. But I will add some more from to time.
Canadian e-Book Company Sold
The Canadian makers of the Kobo wireless eReader have been sold to Japanese company Rakuten for $315-Million according to Business Wire.
The company’s headquarters will remain in Toronto according to the press release.
Bill C-11 Debate Scheduled For Today
Bill C-11 is scheduled to be debated in the House Of Commons today, apparently under time restraints according to the Projected Order Of Business.
Hopefully the questions on the technological protection measures will be blunt and to the point :
- In what manner are artists and copyright owners harmed by private copying from copy protected works ? And why does this harm not exist in private copying from works that are not copy protected ?
- In what manner are film makers harmed by the private viewing of legally purchased films that failed to be distributed in Canada ? And does the sale of this material to Canadians by legitimate retailers and distributors not imply consent to their private use by Canadians ?
The Private Copying section of our Copyright Act distinguished private use from piracy and in my opinion the technical protection measures provisions in Bill C-11 are a step back.
Lawful Access = Higher Internet Fees
There’s no way around it. Lawful access will be costly to consumers in Canada.
The internet providers do not have the necessary technology and manpower to give law enforcement in Canada real time access to internet communications, especially the smaller internet providers. And these extra expenditures will be passed on to Canadians.
We are talking about technology used to distinguish criminal activity from normal internet traffic and according to Statistic Canada‘s Canadian Internet Use Survey, 79% of Canadian households accessed the internet in 2010.
The task is not only overwhelming but could possibly be open to abuse and security breaches.
After all, we are talking about individual internet providers here, some of which use different technologies to secure their networks. And I’m sure there are plenty of identity thieves that would love to access the weaker of these networks, some of which are probably tied to the criminal organizations our law enforcement is trying to expose with this legislation.
The 2011 Canadians and Privacy Survey conducted by Harris/Decima for The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada found that 8 out of 10 Canadians opposed this legislation because of numerous concerns about privacy and security. And in 2009, Statistics Canada found that 48% of Canadian consumers were concerned about credit card purchases online.
Is this really the time to make consumers nervous about security and privacy online ?