Skyway West Recommended: February 13th to 19th

New blog feature! Each Monday we’ll pass on links to articles we thought were well worth reading from the previous week, kind of a Digg-lite for those who live where we do (British Columbia, Canada), work like we do (high speed business internet), and drink the same kool aid we do (internet trends, internet privacy, cutting-edge technology, etc.). If you don’t want to wait ’til Monday, we usually tweet and link to these as we come across them…

The Vancouver Province: Pinterest driving more traffic to company websites than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined (pub. Feb 10)

“Pinterest had seven million unique visitors in December, up from 1.6 million in September. And it’s driving more traffic to company websites and blogs than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined,” Read More…

Michael Geist Blog: Canadian Government Internet Surveillance Bill C-30 Explained (pub. Feb 13)

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews is expected to introduce lawful access legislation tomorrow in the House of Commons. An Act to enact the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act and to amend the Criminal Code and others Acts, likely to be Bill C-30, will mark the return of lawful access in a single legislative package. While it is certainly possible for a surprise, the bill is expected to largely mirror the last lawful access bills (C-50, 51, and 52) that died on the order paper with the election last spring. Read More…

Toronto Sun: Say hello to Big Brother Government  (pub. Feb 14)

The very same government [that dismantled the long-gun registry and changed the rules around the census — both because they represented “Big Brother Government”] tabled new legislation which would give police, spies and federal bureaucrats from the Competition Bureau the power to collect information about the digital services Canadians use without first obtaining a warrant from a judge. There is no excuse for this kind of intrusion on the privacy rights of Canadians and certainly not one from a government that says it champions the idea that the federal government ought to respect individual liberties and rights. Read More…

The Globe and Mail: Analysis: A Costly Overreach, Canadians to pay for Bill C-30 Internet surveillance (pub. Feb 15)

Vic Toews, Canada’s Public Safety Minister, has framed any debate of the Conservative government’s new lawful access bill in the simplest terms: Canadians can either stand with the government, or with child pornographers. Of course, the dichotomy is false. It is possible to oppose this bill without supporting child pornography. The federal and provincial privacy commissioners who have already spoken out against the proposed law didn’t do so because they’ve fallen under the lobbying spell of Big Paedophilia. Read More…

Canada.com: Canadian Civil Liberties association says Surveillance Bill makes ISP providers “agents of the police” (pub. Feb 16)

Minister Toews has tabled the much vilified Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act, a bill that provides additional powers to law enforcement to obtain information from Internet providers, at times without warrant. The Bill is flawed because it makes the ISP providers agents of the police to facilitate the detection of crime, not only child pornography or Internet fraud but for all law enforcement purposes. Read More…

Huffington Post via the CBC: Toews “surprised by” contents of his own Internet Surveillance Bill (pub. Feb 18)

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews says he is surprised to learn that a section of the government’s online surveillance bill provides for “exceptional circumstances” under which “any police officer” can request customer information from a telecommunications service provider. Read More…

New York Times Investigation: How Companies Learn Your Secrets (pub. Feb 16)

Almost every major retailer, from grocery chains to investment banks to the U.S. Postal Service, has a “predictive analytics” department devoted to understanding not just consumers’ shopping habits but also their personal habits, so as to more efficiently market to them. Read how they do it…