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Canada Communications The Internet

Canada's Telco Bell Tried To Have VPNs Banned During NAFTA Negotiations (techdirt.com) 155

Posted by msmash 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.
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Canada's Telco Bell Tried To Have VPNs Banned During NAFTA Negotiations More

Canada's Telco Bell Tried To Have VPNs Banned During NAFTA Negotiations

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  • Taco Bell (Score:5, Insightful)

    by darkain ( 749283 ) on Friday February 01, 2019 @01:08PM (#58056034) Homepage

    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?

  • I don't know how I feel about this. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Friday February 01, 2019 @01:10PM (#58056046)

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

    • Re:I don't know how I feel about this. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday February 01, 2019 @01:13PM (#58056072)

      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.

  • can you still get tacos at the Telco Bell?

  • hahahahahahahahahhahahahahah. Good luck

    Signed
    The Internet.

  • Time for a new phone. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Major_Disorder ( 5019363 ) on Friday February 01, 2019 @01:15PM (#58056088)
    Perhaps it is time to give Bell the boot.

    • Re:Time for a new phone. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Friday February 01, 2019 @02:32PM (#58056552)
      The problem is competition within Canada's telecom system is so lacking, it makes the U.S. (with its government-mandated cable monopolies and vertically integrated carriers preventing you from using devices sold by other carriers) look like paradise in comparison. I looked into getting a Canadian cell phone when I worked there for a couple years. It actually turned out to be cheaper for me to add the Canada roaming option to my U.S. cell phone plan. This is one area where Canada lags far behind the rest of the civilized world.

      • It's true, and a bit crazy. I think all Canadian's know they are getting hosed, but it became a stark contrast over 5 years ago when I went on a multinational trip into Europe. It had folks from all over and everyone had cellphones. Knowing I was travelling, I bought an expensive roaming package from bell for the trip, however it had so few anything it was really just for emergencies, mostly I was in airplane mode the whole time to avoid ridiculous charges except when I was within WiFi range from some hotel

    • I am a cord cutter and have minimal contact with the cable and telco monopolies. What that means is that I get my internet and VOIP over VDSL through a 3rd party but still pay a regulated lease rate of about $10/mo via the third party for the "dry loop" copper wire that passes signals over Bell's network. There is no competing copper in the neighbourhood, so that's about as low as I can go. Cable is an option, but same story there -- Rogers owns the wire.

    • http://www.michaelgeist.ca/2019/01/bell-urged-canadian-government-to-ban-some-vpn-services-in-nafta-submission/

      Bell and Rogers cable are our local duopoly

  • Computer says no. Let's ban Bell Canada instead.

    • Re:Let's ban Bell Canada instead (Score:5, Informative)

      by grumpy-cowboy ( 4342983 ) on Friday February 01, 2019 @01:31PM (#58056196)
      Here the list of Bell's subsidiaries to ban. I didn't even know that The Source (formely Radio Shack) is Bell's property :

      Bell Canada
      Bell Media
      Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (37.5%)
      Bell Mobility
      Bell Aliant
      Virgin Mobile Canada
      Bell Internet
      Bell TV
      Bell Fibe TV
      Fibe
      Bell MTS
      Lucky Mobile
      The Source (retailer)

      • Don't forget CraveTV. If you subscribe to that, you're giving the bastards money. A shame, there's a few things on there I want to watch, but not enough to give Bell even a nickel.

      • because odds are you're just going to do business with a subsidiary. And even if they company isn't owned outright odds are good that it's the same people sitting on the board of directors and the same folks are the major owners via stocks. In short, you can't get away from Mega corps anymore.

        This is why we need more government regulation. We've let too many mergers & acquisitions go on.

  • ... tie what shows a person can watch to the subscriber's billing address. No geo-ip lookup required.

    Yes, I realize that this can still be gotten around by arranging to get a foreign billing address for a foreign card, but the logistics involved in doing this, at least for most people, would generally be considerably more complicated than just using a VPN.

  • I said f***** to Bell long time ago (Score:5, Informative)

    by grumpy-cowboy ( 4342983 ) on Friday February 01, 2019 @01:22PM (#58056128)
    I banned Bell Canada from my life long time ago because of infinite billing
    issues, really poor customer service, abusive influence on the CRTC (our FTC),
    ... I'll NEVER do any business with them (personal and for my small business).
    And with this, asking to ban some VPN services, this is the last nail in the
    coffin for them.
    • Just remember to stay away from Telus, or anyone else that uses Telus equipment.
      Why, because then you are using Bell. Telus cellphones run on the Bell network, and most telephone and Internet traffic from Telus goes over the nation wide Bell Internet backbone. Shaw have their own backbone.
      • Yes, we call them "Bellus"  ;)

        • Yes, we call them "Bellus" ;)

          And given how the three form an oligopoly as far as pricing practices and Industry Canada / CRTC practices a lot of us call the three of them Robulus.

      • Re:Stay Away From Telus As Well (Score:4, Informative)

        by Myrv ( 305480 ) on Friday February 01, 2019 @04:18PM (#58057098)

        Telus cellphones run on the Bell network, and most telephone and Internet traffic from Telus goes over the nation wide Bell Internet backbone

        Not completely true. Telus definitely has their own backbone. Particularly west of Ontario. They do have a cell tower sharing agreement with Bell and if you use a Telus cell phone in Ontario or East you will likely be using a Bell tower. This is true of many carriers though (like Freedom outside their core calling areas). Also, I believe Bell phones use Telus towers in many areas west of Ontario.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        Not quite. Telus and Bell used to have (separate) CDMA, POTS, and other, networks, Telus in the west, Bell in the east. They both realized that GSM was the future and Rogers was going to eat their lunch, so they ganged up... uh, cooperated, to build out a competing GSM network. In eastern Canada you're correct. In western Canada it's the other way around.

        Telus, by the way, used to be Alberta Government Telephones (AGT). They were privatized, ended up with more money than they knew what to do with, and now

    • Re:I said f***** to Bell long time ago (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Friday February 01, 2019 @01:47PM (#58056324)

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

  • I've noticed a number of posts recently by people unfamiliar with the country they are posting news about, where they use non-standard methods to describe it.

    In Canada, one refers to them as Bell Canada.

    On a related note, there is a vast difference between the University of Columbia and Columbia University.

  • How does Bell stand to make money off of this? Do they get some kind of kickback from Canadian streaming services?

    • they run their own Canadian streaming service

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        This right here is why geographic restrictions on content should be illegal. Europe got it right when they banned geo-blocking. It only hurts consumers by diminishing the free market and propping up monopolies/oligopolies. It can never have any real benefit.

        • Europe didn't ban geo-blocking. Only, the EU banned geo-blocking within the EU, which means you have to offer the same content at the same price for all EU countries. It make sense in a single market.
          But companies are still free to offer different content outside the EU at a different price.

          USA and Canada do not form a single market.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            The intent of NAFTA was to create a common market for the U.S., Canada, and Mexico by eliminating trade barriers between those countries. If it makes sense to eliminate geo-blocking among EU states, then it also makes sense to eliminate it among the U.S., Canada, and Mexico for precisely the same reason.

            • The EU is much more integrated than USA/Canada/Mexico. NAFTA is not a common market.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

              NAFTA is at level 2 on that scale while the EU is level 6. With the common market being level 4.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by dgatwood ( 11270 )

                Either way, terminology aside, the point still remains that the purpose of NAFTA was to remove artificial trade barriers between the countries, and geo-blocking is an artificial trade barrier.

                • Re: (Score:3)

                  by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

                  The point of NAFTA was never to remove trade barriers for *people.* It was to remove them, strategically, for companies.

                • The purpose was clearly not to remove those barriers, only to reduce some of them. And it's only valid for goods produced inside the NAFTA area. It never intended to be a customs union. In the EU you can import a Chinese good in Netherland and move it to Spain without any issue.

                  Also to remove artificial trade barriers with the rest of the world, the USA should drop the imperial measurement units.

      • Re:What's Bell's stake in this? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Mashiki ( 184564 ) <mashiki@gmail.cBALDWINom minus author> on Friday February 01, 2019 @01:36PM (#58056246) Homepage

        Bingo. They also got slapped by the CRTC several times in the last decade. Two cases that stand out, the first was with GAS(last mile) to DSL customers, and wanting to charge TPIA(third party companies that lease the last mile) 150% tariff rates. Bell and it's buddies(Rogers, Telus, and a couple of others) though they had this in the bag. This led to a stand-off between the CRTC and the Harper Conservatives, along with the minister of industry. With a direct threat that they'd have their mandate for regulation pulled if they sided with Bell and this anti-competitive action. Needless to say the CRTC fell in line with the government.

        The second was with Bell's streaming service, where they weren't billing their DSL or cell customers for data being used while watching their own streaming service but billing people who were using netflix(despite netflix having provided caching boxes to bell) for data use, and taking it out of their monthly cap. They got slapped hard for it and got levied with an injunction for anti-competitive practices.

        This is more of the same for Bell. The current shitshow is Bell trying to block TPIA's from getting access to fiber links for high speed internet, in some cases like in Oxford and Middlesex counties(Ontario), they've acted in a manner to block TPIA's from laying their own fiber - with the CRTC having to step in. This is after Bell saying they had "no interest" in laying fiber to remote communities in the heaviest populated part of Canada(Windsor to Montreal, QC corridor)

        • I live in a remote community that has no fiber/DSL/cable internet. A few months ago, they tore up one of the main roads and widened it a bit - not enough to make it 2 lanes both ways, but to add a hard shoulder *shrug*.

          At the time, I was really hoping they would have laid some fiber, what with the road being dug up and all, but alas it was not meant to be. They had placed some orange stakes alongside my property and, in a fit of optimism, I checked the Internet which assured me orange stakes = high spe

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Mashiki ( 184564 )

            Likely just that. If you're in Canada, you can file a complaint to the CCTS [ccts-cprst.ca] over the lack of broadband in your area. The other option is maybe look up a nearby TPIA, then see about setting up an independent ISP buying off of them. One of the jobs I did out in Alberta a few years ago was simply that. A local community(about 500 people), paid an upfront fee got a 3rd party to drop lines, then subcontracted the connection to Telus in their case. Worked out to being roughly the same cost minus the upfront

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            Your community probably already has fibre to it. My home town is hundreds of kilometres away from the nearest city, and there's fibre to it, laid more than a decade ago.

            No, you can't get real high speed internet there either.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      How does Bell stand to make money off of this? Do they get some kind of kickback from Canadian streaming services?

      Bell is a telecommunications agency, an ISP, a company which owns TV channels as well as sells TV service, some media outlets, and a company which owns streaming services. They're huge with fingers in lots of stuff.

      Bell is tied into this stuff from top to bottom in Canada .. they're also a company of major assholes and really bullshit behavior to their customers.

      Many of us wouldn't go near Bell

  • Almost two years old movies and shows....
    The only saving grace is their own generated content, and the interface is rather well thought out.
    Apart from that....

    • Apart from that? Netflix costs less than CraveTV.

      And paying for CraveTV means more cash in Bell's bank account, which allows them to try to push more bullshit like this one and have money for their lawyers to screw us all. So I'll never subscribe to CraveTV, even if it was only 25 cents per month.

  • I mean, yes, you could put the onus on Canada's Bell to track down and acquire rights to all of the things on the US services. But why do they have to do that in the first place? Because rights holders decided that they'd make more money selling the same content to a US firm and then to a UK firm and then to a Canadian firm, each paying a premium for "exclusive" rights.

    OK, OK, so, yes, the onus is kind of on Bell for participating in the system (I'm sure they defend their exclusive rights against other Ca

  • Just put GPS chips in everything (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Just require all devices to have GPS receivers, including desktop motherboards, and have them ping location out of band from the userspace.

    Problem solved.

  • Bell Canada (Score:4, Funny)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Friday February 01, 2019 @02:07PM (#58056448) Homepage Journal

    It's not "Bell", it's "Bell Canada [wikipedia.org]". They were simply the Canadian arm of the American Bell Telephone Company [wikipedia.org] until 1975 [wikipedia.org]. Sounds like they still have the spirit of the original... You know, "We don't care, we don't have to, we're the phone company."

  • Maybe Bell needs to build a great firewall of Canada to block America's cultural imperialism

  • #BreakUpBell! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Time to nationalize & regionalize Bell.

    The only telcomm provider in the country not acticely fucking people is Sasktel, the Crown Corporation with the mandate to provide service (vs generate profits, although its done too much of that for the Cons to be able to Privatize it like they did to SaskPotash!).

    Nationalize Bell Justin!!

  • Wont someone think of the security services and the fun they had in Canada with the BULLRUN /Edgehill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] like US/UK support.
    Why would the gov of Canada approve a VPN ban when they get the VPN keys under full 5 eye https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] sharing?

    A ban on VPN use in Canada would make VPN decryption difficult in Canada as few interesting people would not want to risk detection using a banned VPN service.

    Keep VPN services and Canada can collect on everyone as a VPN

  • If they Really wanted to stop this --- then stop trying to Geo Identify IP addresses, and
    instead: Step 1. require services to use Customer's Billing Information. If the customer's billing
    address is in Canada, then they cannot access the US library.

    Step 2. On mobile apps, require the service to cross-check customer's location using the GPS and location services
    of the mobile device --- if the GPS does not say you are in the US, then you cannot access the US library, even if your billing address is i

  • The REAL absurdity (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Miamicanes ( 730264 ) on Friday February 01, 2019 @06:11PM (#58057694)

    The REAL absurdity is that today, in 2019, content produced in the US or Canada STILL ends up with different owners of the licensing rights in both countries.

    I mean, seriously. I can understand the problem of legacy stuff that was created years ago, back when things like making moving prints, physically transporting them from theater to theater around the country, and promoting them locally was a big deal, but Jesus Fucking Christ on Rollerblades... pretty much ANY English-language TV show or movie that gets produced today and released in one country is practically guaranteed to end up in the other country within a year.

    Technically, the media market between the US and Canada is about as frictionless as two media markets can possibly GET. We both use the same TV standard, have the same TV framerates, watch the same TV shows and movies, and listen to the same music.

    Before someone brings up Quebec, I'd argue that French-speaking Canadians endure even WORSE grief due to the silliness of US-Canadian licensing complexity. Consider, for example, the tens or hundreds of thousands of French Canadians who live in Florida and New York & have to jump through silly hoops to watch French-Canadian TV shows that haven't yet been officially licensed yet for distribution in the US. Also, there's no need to "protect" French-language shows... French is a major worldwide language with a HUGE international export market, and Canada has become a worldwide film and TV powerhouse precisely BECAUSE most Canadian actors & actresses are now bilingual. In Canada, you can produce a film or movie that shoots close-up speaking scenes twice (once in English, once in French, same actors for both), use the same actors to dub THEMSELVES for the remainder of the scenes, and cost-effectively produce content with "native" production values in BOTH languages.

    Incidentally, the "shoot twice... once in English, once in another language" strategy is something that was uncommon in the past, but has become popular in recent years thanks to both cheaper digital editing workflows and multilingual actors. The Norwegian+Netflix TV show "Norsemen" is a perfect example of it -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] ).

    And I'm NOT arguing that the licensing barriers between other countries make much more sense... I'm just pointing out the utter and complete absurdity of the present state of licensing affairs between two countries whose media markets have about as close to 100% overlap as you can get. Of all the things NAFTA has dropped the ball on over the years, this is probably the most galling example of something that SHOULD today be completely frictionless and transparent.

    It wouldn't even take much beyond a treaty between the US and Canada & the necessary enabling legislation to declare that henceforth, after some future date, all newly-created (or newly-licensed within the US-Canada market) content licensed for distribution in one country is automatically licensed for distribution in both, and that no contractual language limiting the rights of a licensee to do that will be enforced.

    At first, there would be too much legacy content with split rights ownership for much to change... but eventually, there would be enough content with unified licensing that some new service would launch that didn't bother to distinguish between US and Canadian customers, and as a result would only license content AVAILABLE under unified licensing. The aftermath would be a flurry of companies who owned country-specific rights bartering, trading, selling, and buying those country-specific rights to consolidate their ownership and increase the content's value by making IT eligible for licensing to that country-agnostic service.

    Eventually, there would be enough licensing-consolidation, even of legacy content, for services like Netflix and Comcast to decide that it simply wasn't worth bothering anymore with content that demanded geographic restrictions, which would render content that COULDN'T be licensed under unified terms almost without commercial value until someone DID manage to buy up and aggregate the distribution rights.

  • Yo quiero telco bell

    Can't get that image out of my head...

  • Not long ago they were advocating for internet censorship. This is just a logical extension of that mindset. They want your internet to be more like cable TV.

    Hard to imagine a company that works so actively against the interests of its customers still has any.

  • A VPN being a VPN, how to they tell the difference between a corporate, defense, or law firm VPN and someone watching Netflix without some sort of encryption intrusion?

  • Bell's actions are all about self-interest, as it is their tendency to do. Another poster has pointed out the various Bell-owned companies, which makes it abundantly clear that their actions have nothing to do with Candian content regulations, and everything to do with trying to control the internet. Just like they're opposing net neutrality with all possible gusto.

  • VPN (Score:1)

    by Max ( 5755818 )
    Quite interesting. But it's just impossible to ban vpns I think. I myself don't use such services much but I have the best free vpn for torrenting [vpnservicepro.com] installed just in case and sometimes it allows me to save some money getting software for free.
    • I think so too. To use a VPN is a normal right of every person. Besides all, it's also an elementary network security rule. You can speed up the work a little more. The necessary instructions for configuring the router can be found here - https://www.router-reset.com/d... [router-reset.com] This will ensure a comfortable viewing online video with a minimum delay.

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