Canada's Website Filtering Plan Under Fire Canadian consumer groups are taking aim at a new plan to impose website filters across Canada. The program, dubbed "Fairplay," has been primarily spearheaded by Bell, and would create a pseudo-government agency tasked with tracking and blacklisting certain websites they believe encourage copyright infringement. Critics warn such programs don't do a particularly good job at stopping piracy, as pirates tend to easily bypass such restrictions. They do, however, often cause problems when legitimate websites are erroneously blocked.

Canadian consumer group Open Media has launched a website urging consumers to contact the 25 companies behind the Fairplay push and urge them to back off the controversial plan. "A coalition of over 25 organizations called FairPlay Canada are asking the CRTC to create a government-backed censorship committee that would force Canada’s Internet service providers (ISPs) to block websites accused of piracy without court oversight," Open Media says on its website. "This SOPA-style proposal will lead to legitimate content being censored," the company added. "But we a have solid shot at stopping this if we can pressure the groups below to drop out." The proposal would create a Canadian organization called the Independent Piracy Review Agency (IPRA) under the supervision of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). That organization would then catalog a list of websites and organizations its member companies believe should be banned, and pass the requests on to ISPs. The problem, as long-time DSLReports readers are likely aware, is that these filters are usually costly, yet easily bypassed by any pirate with even a modicum of technical skill. The real impact comes at the cost of blocked access to websites that are falsely classified as aiding copyright infringement, or erroneously caught up in the filter blacklist. In short: filters are a pricey, ineffective weapon that traditionally wind up doing more harm than good. Canadian law professor Michael Geist has been writing a Canadian law professor Michael Geist has been writing a ten part (and growing) essay on why Canada's plan is bad for everything from human rights to net neutrality. There's also lengthy conversations in our forums for those looking for additional detail.







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Most recommended from 9 comments

MaynardKrebs

We did it. We heaved Steve. Yipee.

Premium Member

join:2009-06-17 12 recommendations MaynardKrebs Premium Member It isn't "Canada's Plan"

It's the plan proposed by the vertically integrated cabal of large ISP's and content distributors/owners. You have assholes like this in the US too. shmerl

join:2013-10-21 11 recommendations shmerl Member Censorship freaks just keep creeping in. Some just have an insatiable urge for control.

maartena

Elmo

Premium Member

join:2002-05-10

Orange, CA 6 recommendations maartena Premium Member Hasn't worked in Australia and the UK... Both Australia and the UK have tried similar things, blocking torrent websites, some porn websites, etc.... but it hasn't worked, and it has actually backfired. Australians are massively using VPN's and DNS bypasses to go to previously blocked websites.



This is an attempt by lobbying movie and music industry to get the ISP's on their side, and they are doing it the way they can best get results in each country. In the USA they aren't going to get anywhere with the FCC (regardless of who is/was in charge) so they took to the courts. In Canada they go directly to the bigger ISP's an persuade them, and in the UK they went through the government under the guise of blocking "terrorism websites" after yet another london bus and/or underground bombing.



But has it actually worked? Nope. Block have not worked. The only country that has been mildly successful in blocking is China, because they also blocked all commercial VPN providers. If you work for an American company and use a VPN to work remotely, you can still get to everything you need, through the VPN, through the great firewall of China. And even China's great firewall isn't watertight.



Trying to block websites in ANY western country is a big fail. It doesn't work. It hasn't slowed down torrent traffic in Australia or the UK because the bypasses are trivial. And it will fail in Canada, too....