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Ontario Government Wants To Regulate the Internet

Posted by samzenpus on from the I-wanna-be-in-charge dept.

An anonymous reader writes This afternoon, the Ontario government appeared before the CRTC as part of its future of television hearing. Michael Geist reports that it issued a clear call for new regulation of so-called new media companies such as Netflix and Google. The government states: "In order to create a more level playing field, the ministry recommends decreasing this regulatory imbalance. The ministry believes the best way to accomplish this is to expand the regulation of new media TV, rather than by lightening the current regulation of traditional TV." What does the expansion of regulation involve? For the Ontario government, it includes regulating foreign online video services such as Google and Netflix, but exempting Canadian services.

2 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Wouldn't it be nice... by RhettLivingston · · Score: 4, Interesting

    if these new media companies would simply stop their feed to Ontario IPs for a week just to make the point for once?

  2. Re:Government doesn't get it. by hjf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yeah, that's not how the world works. Sorry.

    You see, you live in the USA. Your country is the biggest piece of shit when it comes to fair trade.

    Why? Because you CANNOT compete. So you create bullshit regulations and trade barriers. But you go around the world bullying other countries to sign free trade agreements with you. So you can dump our countries with your crap - but we can't sell to you.

    I'm from Argentina. We can't sell lemons to you (even though our lemons are cheaper than yours), and we can't sell beef to you (even though or beef is perfectly healthy). The US claims our beef is contaminated with Foot-and-mouth disease, so they won't accept it. All it takes is ONE case in my country for you to completely block us for years. Think about it for a little and figure it out. Have you? Let me explain: all it takes is for someone from the US to infect ONE of our cows - for the US to completely block trade for one of our main industries.

    And the US works ACTIVELY so other countries CANNOT develop. For example, when Argentina was working on a 4K video codec, the US government, by way of "export controls" didn't allow nVidia to sell us more than 4 (four) Tesla units - for the whole country.

    See? THAT is how the world works. Not with your libertarian free market theory.