LawBytes Podcast – Episode 32 was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best way to convert your audio to text in 2019.
Michael Geist:
This is Law Bytes, a podcast with Michael Geist.
David Graham:
If I have a Web site and I have Google Analytics on it, I’ve approved Google’s use of my Web site to collect data. But somebody’s coming to use my Web site doesn’t know that Google’s collecting data on my site. So is there implied consent or is that illegal?
Daniel Therrien:
It is one of the flaws of consent, probably that there is a term and condition somewhere that makes this consent, and that’s why I say that privacy is not only about rules on consent. It’s about the use of the information and the respect for rights. We should not be fixated on consent as the be all and end all of privacy and data protection.
David Graham:
Without mandated net neutrality there is nothing to stop a company from paying your ISP to increase access to their own services or decrease access to their competitors services. And to my point last time I spoke on this about overselling Internet connections, I don’t have much sympathy for ISP in that situation. And so the argument that net neutrality has to go because of capacity issues is spurious. In my view. ISP should be required to market minimum, not maximum sustained speed capability to their first peer outside of the network at typical peak usage times. Xplornet for example market twenty five megabit satellite service won’t tell you that for most customers, but only applies at 3 a.m. on a clear night with no northern lights and even then only during the full moon. I may be exaggerating, but only a bit. It isn’t that the satellites and ground stations can’t handle an individual connection at that speed most of the time. It is that the connections are oversold, resulting in constant bitter complaining and my writing from rural internet users who are stuck between the Xplornet rock and the dial-up hard place.
David Graham:
A number of years ago, the MPAA and RIAA, the recording industry association, went after individuals who were using P2P sites suing the pants off these poor families. How did that go? And what happened? And that still happened.
Wendy Noss:
Yeah, I’m not sure you’re getting that information, but that’s not a position of our companies.
Michael Geist:
David Graham was not your typical member of Parliament. A Liberal MP from the Quebec riding of Laurentides-Labelle, Graham brought a background in open source issues to Parliament Hill. Over his four years as an MP from 2015 until this year, Graham was seemingly everywhere when it came to digital policy. Whether in the House of Commons talking about net neutrality, the Industry Committee on Copyright or the Ethics Committee work on privacy, Graham emerged as the rare MP equally at home in the technology and policy worlds. Graham’s bid for re-election fell short last month as momentum for the Bloc was too much to overcome. This week, he joins me on the podcast to reflect on his experience in Ottawa with his thoughts on copyright, privacy, tech policy and the use of digital tools for advocacy purposes.
Michael Geist:
David, thanks so much for joining me.
David Graham:
And thank you for inviting me.
Michael Geist:
That’s great. So, you know, you were an MP, I think, with a bit of a different background. You’d served as a parliamentary assistant, so you knew the environment of Parliament Hill. But before coming to Ottawa, you were involved in open source issues. Before we get into the experience in your years as an MP, maybe you describe a little bit the path that ultimately resulted in you becoming a member of parliament.
David Graham:
Well, I had I’ve always had an interest in politics. I’ve always participated as a volunteer on campaigns from my teens. What I love doing and in 2008, in the second tech bubble burst, I was suddenly no no longer in the employee of the open source journalism world, as were all of my colleagues. We were all let go together. Decide what I actually wanted with my life. And so I called up my MP at the time who had helped in the campaign as his data chair because already doing data work. And I said, can I
