A group of Ottawa area students and young professionals has launched Zegov.ca, which describes itself as a “content aggregator designed to provide the public, the media and public-service employees with a continuous flow of information generated by government institutions through social media.”

Zegov.ca offers a single gateway to content from federal government Twitter and Facebook channels and official blogs.

According to the creators, there are 222 government Twitter accounts, 95 Facebook pages and 11 official blogs right now. Zegov.ca soon plans to add content from official federal YouTube, Flickr and LinkedIn accounts.

On the Zegov.ca site, you can find . . . [more]

It has now been six months since the “first step” Google+ API was released; and unfortunately, it remains a read only tool. Six months! That’s an incredibly long time for a company trying to innovate and play catch-up with a competitor that is so far in front. If Google wants continued loyalty from the grass roots developer community, they need to enable this basic aspect of interoperability — writing into the Google+ ecosystem from outside applications and websites is critical to its evolution.

For the legal community, this means lawyers and firms will continue to spend time manually sharing content. . . . [more]

In Alberta, we have consumer protection legislation in the form of the Fair Trading Act.

The Fair Trading Act affects how most household purchases can be sold by prohibiting unfair practices and misleading advertising. In specific types of transactions, the Act provides consumer cancellation rights, special contract requirements and a seller’s code of conduct. It also requires specific types of businesses to be licensed.

There are many sources of consumer protection in addition to legislation. A news release from the Alberta Government celebrates the work of Albertans who were named consumer protection champions for 2011.

The reason that I find . . . [more]

After nearly two years since publishing its first proposal on the topic, the North Carolina State Bar has adopted its Formal Ethics Opinion on cloud computing (thanks to Steph Kimbro for the heads up). The opinion, titled 2011 Formal Ethics Opinion 6: Subscribing to Software as a Service While Fulfilling the Duties of Confidentiality and Preservation of Client Property, concludes that:

a law firm may contract with a vendor of software as a service provided the lawyer uses reasonable care to safeguard confidential client information

Like the Law Society of British Columbia’s Report on Cloud Computing, the . . . [more]

On Friday the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, Ontario released the paper Embedding Privacy into the Design of EHRs to Enable Multiple Functionalities – Win/Win authored by the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario Dr. Ann Cavoukian and Richard C. Alvarez, President and CEO of Canada Health Infoway.

From the March 2, 2012 news release:

Research indicates that Canadians have a degree of comfort with using EHR information for such purposes, as long as privacy and security protections are in place. The paper underscores the need for transparency in the way EHR information is managed and safeguarded.

I just learned of the existence of a bulletin called Connected, which is published by two US-based organizations, the National Center for State Courts and the Conference of Court Public Information Officers.

According to the inaugural April 2011 issue:

“This newsletter will provide news, information and resources on topics such as how courts are using new media, the impact of new media on court proceedings, ethical implications of judges and court staff using new media, and court policy issues relating to new media.”

The focus is American but there is occasionally material about non-US matters, as in . . . [more]

Every age has had its paranoia, I imagine. After all, the world does have its dangers and among them are indeed some of the people who have risen to power — who themselves get paranoid about challenges to their power. In relatively recent memory there was the destructive McCarthy period in the US and later, Nixon’s creepy fears. Closer to home, not too long ago the RCMP kept files on just about everyone who jaywalked, and hippies were certain their phones were tapped and flushed their dope down the toilet whenever there was an unexpected knock on the door.

Now, . . . [more]

This weekend I participated in PodCamp Toronto, an unconference about social media with hundreds of participants. We had close to 80 sessions over the weekend, and a good number of them talked about or mentioned the newest social media darling, Pinterest. As a long-time blogger, I think of Pinterest as a photo blog with some advanced functionality, but the rest of the world sees it more like an online scrap book or bulletin board. With Pinterest, users “pin” images they have found around the Internet that inspire them to a “pin board”. Individuals can have many different pin . . . [more]

Lots of money and legions of online followers can generate a lot of successful business models. Ask our friends at Google, who have delved into everything from search, to email hosting, browser software, OS developer, and mobile hardware building. Google has applied their infrastructure to a lot of different businesses, and frequently finds success.

Having a person on the other end of the phone to solve problems? Unfortunately, that is not part of the Google toolbox. And when it works, few of us are likely to complain. We respect the idea of thoughtfully engineering activities to the point where human . . . [more]

Last week, the International Bar Association (IBA) published The Impact of Online Social Networking on the Legal Profession and Practice, the first comprehensive report on the potential impact of online social networking within the legal profession.

The IBA conducted a 31-question survey of some 60 bar associations and/or law societies from 47 jurisdictions (all continents were represented). Questions were related to the appropriateness of the use of online social networks by legal actors, with a particular focus on judges and lawyers.

Among the highlights:

• Almost 70 per cent of respondents felt that it is acceptable for lawyers and judges

Daniel Poulin just told me that Canlii will, this week, pass a momentous event – the millionth case will be added to Canlii.

We tend to take Canlii for granted – but it really has been a remarkably successful project, which should be supported by all Canadian lawyers, and cheered by Slaw readers. Public access is vital.

Now – a small challenge for those readers. What will the millionth case be?

A Newfoundland and Labrador trial decision? Or something from the Québec Commission de reconnaissance des associations d’artistes et des associations de producteurs? Which has the wonderful acronym, qccraaap. . . . [more]