The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is holding public consultations on the privacy implications of the online collection of personal information by commercial entities for the purpose of tracking, profiling and targeting individuals in the home computing and mobile device environments. Submissions are due on March 15, 2010.

• Commissioner's Message
• News Release: Privacy Commissioner launches public consultations on emerging technologies
• Notice of Consultation and Call for Submissions

The Liberal Party today released its responses to a list of questions put to it by SaveOurNet.ca and intended to clarify its net neutrality policy.  Among other things, the Liberals state clearly that ISPs "must treat all lawful content, applications and services in a non-discriminatory manner".  The Liberlas, the NDP and the Green Party have now all come out in favour of Canadian network neutrality.

The Supreme Court in Grant v. Torstar has held that "responsible communications" by journalists, bloggers, and others who  disseminate matters of public interest will qualify as a defense to a defamation action.  To make out the defense, a publisher must show that the publication was on a matter of public interest and that the publisher was diligent in ensuring the veracity of the publication.

The University of Ottawa recently became the first Canadian University to join the Compact for Open Access Publishing, joining Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, MIT, and Berkeley and adopted the most comprehensive Open Access policy in Canada!

Yesterday, the Electronic Privacy Information Centre and nine other privacy organizations in the US filed a complaint with the FTC against Facebook's recent drastic changes of its privacy settings.  The complaint alleges Facebook's recent changes were unfair practices and demands injunctive reliefe, demonstrating the international scope of concerns over privacy on social networking sites.

A leaked draft of the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement's intellectual property chapter indicates that, as in ACTA, Canada appears to be negotiating away control over domestic IP policy.  The draft chapter covers copyright, patents, plant production, geographical indications, industrial designs and trade-marks, greatly expanding on standards set by existing international law. 

Today, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre released a comprehensive report on the state of net neutrality in Canada.  The report shows consumer concern over ISP interference with network traffic and calls for greater protection of consumer's rights.