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The slant of the FairPlay proposal toward the draconian enforcement of intellectual property rights is readily seen in how its proposal is framed — including the naming of the agency to focus on the loaded term “piracy,” as well as a highly-biased list of factors to be considered in determining whether to bar access to a particular website.

But even more pernicious is its idea of funding the agency through application fees. Based on that structure, anybody employed by the agency would have an institutional incentive to favour copyright holders over all other interests — as decisions in favour of open access which resulted in less applications being pursued would lead in turn to a loss of funding.

Fortunately, the CRTC’s response so far has been to implicitly challenge the premise of the proposal by emphasizing its historical focus on neutrality and accessibility. But the prospect of a big-money campaign to allow media conglomerates to restrict how Canadians are able to share information still calls for a response from policymakers and the public.

Meanwhile, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has raised another proposal to interfere in the availability of information online on the basis of a “right to be forgotten.”

Daniel Therrien has suggested expanding on the European Union’s framework which allows for users to apply to challenge the accuracy or appropriateness of information about themselves online.

The EU’s system allows for a user to apply to a search engine to de-index particular results. But Therrien’s proposal could be far more intrusive: It potentially includes greater editorializing by search engines in the form of down-ranking and flagging particular content, as well as the mandatory removal of content at its source.