Facebook just announced a new search tool called Graph Search that is now in beta for a limited number of users. It allows users to search based on information about their friends. A search, for example, for a restaurant will return results based on the likes and interests of the searcher’s friends.

It seems that Facebook is respecting user privacy settings, and basing the search only on what users have chosen to make public. But then again consent is all about context, and users may not have thought about such a feature when considering their privacy settings.

Facebook’s announcement has . . . [more]

Seemingly in honour of the return of hockey, Google has chosen to celebrate Frank Zamboni with today’s interactive doodle. It lets you play a game in which you drive the zamboni to clean the ice up after skaters. Here’s a video of someone playing the game:

. . . [more]

GTA Linux User’s Group, Political Outreach Group (David Collier-Brown, Editor)

Slaw readers may have noticed a flurry of interest around Voltage v. Doe and TekSavvy, an effort to get the courts to compel TekSavvy to identify 2000 households which Voltage Pictures argues are engaging in commercial copyright infringement via the “bit torrent” program.

Slaw has considered the subject of discovery of IP addresses recently in two posts: https://www.slaw.ca/2009/09/13/norwich-orders-applied-to-gmail-account/ and https://www.slaw.ca/2009/09/15/york-university-v-bell-canada-enterprises-observations-and-implications-for-future-norwich-jurisprudence/.

The technical community is following such cases with both interest and trepidation, as we expected suits against individuals to be rare, and limited to $100 to $5,000 . . . [more]

The Internet was invented by a state agency (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA) for military reasons. By design its communications divided into nodes that were intended to be self-sustaining rather than dependent on central control. The Internet initially spread outside the military through academic communities used to free speech. Its explosive growth was based on readily understood free browsers on the World Wide Web – browsers largely supplied by the private sector, whether for profit (Microsoft, Apple) or not for profit (Mozilla Foundation).

The wild west

As a result, it seemed reasonable, not to say . . . [more]

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and which French-language case have been the most viewed on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For the week of January 7 – 14:

1. Daniels v. Canada 2013 FC 6
   

   [1] The critical question posed in this litigation is straightforward – Are non-status Indians and Métis [MNSI], identified as “Indians” under s 91(24) of the Constitution Act, 1867, 30 & 31 Victoria, c 3 (UK) [the Constitution]?

2. McCain v. McCain 2012 ONSC 7344
   

   [1] The Applicant, Christine McCain (“the Wife”) brings a Motion

Deloitte has released its Technology, Media & Telecommunications Predictions 2013 report, which outlines its top 10 Canadian predictions in these three realms of activity for the upcoming year.

The predictions themselves are interesting and I, for one, learnt about certain technology issues that I was not even aware were going concerns.

An issue that is often discussed and the related prediction that may (or may not) seem surprising is password security: the report predicts that 90% of user-generated passwords will be vulnerable to hacking within seconds. Part of this problem is the way that users themselves structure their passwords . . . [more]

A morning radio program recently was discussing lost arts. A few things were mentioned including calligraphy, chivalry, and blacksmithing. I was worried that book binding would be on the list of lost arts, but that does not seem to be the case at all.

This fiscal year my team has a budget line for book binding. We intend to send some of our cancelled looeleaf services to the bindery to both preserve their integrity as a point in time research tool as well as make it clear that the content does not change. There are a couple of very good . . . [more]

One of the stories we missed in the lead-up to the holiday season was the announcement that the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University has created the North American Law Degree program. According to the law school website:

ASU’s North American Law Degree will include:

• A comprehensive curriculum in Canadian law
• A three-year program that seeks to fulfill all substantive J.D. bar requirements in common-law Canada and the U.S.
• The ability for third-year students to take the Arizona bar exam in their final semester and focus on the licensure process in Canada immediately after graduation

There’s a tendency for all of us working in legal publishing to think of printed books when we think of secondary sources. Even when we know we’ll publish online as well as in print, our choice of format (or information design) is still strongly influenced by our familiarity with print.

Over the years, we’ve certainly changed our thinking about the format of primary law. We now expect statutes and case law to be available and easily searchable in large databases, with noting up and other features added. And although some have lamented the wane of the bound law report, we . . . [more]

I suppose it could be like setting up a start-up with their first set of corporate records and related legal documents. There’s a nervous excitement in the air of what’s to come. The possibilities. The probabilities.

What’s not to love? For me, the only thing better than branding a start-up business, is getting invited to rebrand an existing mature firm whose current brand is gasping for air and no longer really … sorry to say… visually relevant. In fact, most of the tired brands don’t say much or stand for anything. In reality, most legal brands are developed without much . . . [more]

Here are excerpts from the most recent tips on SlawTips, the site that each week offers up useful advice, short and to the point, on technology, research and practice.

Technology

One New Year’s Resolution You Must Follow-Through On: I Will Make a Backup of My Data
Dan Pinnington

No doubt you have all made – or at least thought about making – a few New Year’s resolutions. Hopefully one of them is to make a backup of your data. You do have a backup – don’t you??? . . .

Research

Find Your Groups
Shaunna Mireau

I confess to . . . [more]

Back in November, I posted about Seller Property Information Statements (“SPIS“) and a case in which a vendor was found to have misrepresented the answer to a question on the SPIS and was held to be liable.

In a recent decision, the Court of Appeal partially upheld a trial judge’s decision awarding over $70,000 in damages to the purchasers of a home as a result of fraudulent misrepresentations made by the vendors prior to the deal going through.

The defendants (vendors) had constructed the house themselves. Prior to entering an agreement of purchase and sale the purchasers noticed . . . [more]