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Canada's Telco Bell Tried To Have VPNs Banned During NAFTA Negotiations (techdirt.com)

Posted by msmash on from the stranger-things dept.

Telecom company Bell urged the Canadian government to formulate rules that would make some VPN services illegal in the country ahead of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations. The rationale behind the request? It doesn't want people in the country to use VPNs to access the US catalog of some streaming services like Netflix. TechDirt, quotes a paywalled report: "In its submission, Bell argued that Canadians accessing content from a US service with a VPN 'unjustly enriches the US service, which has not paid for the Canadian rights' but nonetheless makes that content available to Canadians. Bell's media arm reportedly spends millions on content for it streaming service, Crave TV, which allows Canadians to stream content from American networks such as HBO and Showtime."

Again though, it's not the VPN doing that. And if you want to stop users from flocking to better content catalogs elsewhere on the continent, you should focus your ire on the things causing that to happen -- like increasingly dated and absurd geo-viewing restrictions, and your own substandard content offerings that fail to adequately match up.

5 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. Taco Bell by darkain · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Am I the only one that at first read that as "Taco Bell" and wondered why a fast food place gave two shits about VPNs on their WiFi?

    1. Re:Taco Bell by jwhyche · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Nope, several of us did the same thing.

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      I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
  2. I don't know how I feel about this. by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It is important for the population to understand how trade effects your personal life.
    However banning VPN's goes against Internet Freedom.

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    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:I don't know how I feel about this. by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It is important for the population to understand how trade effects your personal life.

      Yes, especially "free trade". You know the exact opposite of what such a VPN would achieve despite "free trade" being in the title.

  3. Re:I said f***** to Bell long time ago by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Bell Canada didn't acquire Times New Roman, though. You can stop abusing the <code> tag.

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    #DeleteFacebook