It's really amazing the sort of propaganda that gets thrown around by the entertainment industry about how pretty much all uses of BitTorrent are evil and about infringing. It leads to ridiculous situations like Rogers Communications, up in Canada, throttling World of Warcraft players' connections, in an incredibly hamfisted attempt to throttle file sharing. Rogers apparently just targeted all BitTorrent usage, perhaps not realizing that there are legitimate uses of BitTorrent, including for World of Warcraft. Rogers claims that it's working to "fix" the problem, but perhaps the way to fix it is to just invest in bandwidth and stop worrying about what protocol your users are using.

One of the popular claims from entertainment industry supporters, who somehow want ISPs to be liable for file sharing, is that "ISPs profit from file sharing." We hear this over and over again. But there's little evidence that's true. It's not like most internet users wouldn't have internet access if they couldn't file share (that's another myth, where the industry overvalues its own content, without realizing there are other reasons to have an internet connection). However, even more evidence can be found in the fact that various ISPs continue to work so hard to throttle file sharing traffic because it actually costs them a lot in terms of bandwidth. The ISPs already have some incentives to minimize traffic hogging (even if their methods are crude and lame right now).

As various broadband providers drool over the idea of implementing broadband caps, they've mainly focused on the claim that they're doing so to make "bandwidth hogs" pay "their fair share." Sometimes they sprinkle this with claims of poverty over having to provide unlimited access to people who actually use it a lot. Of course, none of this is true. The various metered broadband plans almost always end up increasing everyone's bills, and there's little to no evidence that bandwidth hogs are a problem, either technologically or economically speaking.

For the most part, broadband caps are really about protecting video revenue. Many broadband providers these days also provide television, and that business is a total racket these days, with TV companies rolling in cash. Internet TV breaks up the artificial monopolies and the monopoly rents they can extract, so the last thing the broadband (and TV) providers want to do is make it easier for consumers to route around their television programming and access it directly on the internet.

As if to highlight that very point, Canadian telco giant Rogers decreased its already very, very low broadband caps just as Netflix announced that its streaming service was coming to Canada. The timing may be slightly coincidental, but it certainly highlights the point. Rogers doesn't want you streaming videos on Netflix if it means you might not watch Rogers' own TV programming.

Ah, modern technology. Michael Geist points us to the story of a woman in Canada who is suing her mobile phone provider, Rogers, for supposedly "revealing" the fact that she was having an affair. Basically, she had a mobile phone account with Rogers under her maiden name, which she used to have long chats with someone she was having an affair with. Her husband had set up the family's cable TV service, also from Rogers. At one point, he called Rogers to add internet and home phone service to the account, and Rogers then mailed a "global" bill that included all accounts. In looking over the bill, the husband noticed the long phone calls all to one number, and called it, and got the guy to admit to the affair. Following that, he left the wife.

Now the woman, whose husband walked out, is suing the communications giant for $600,000 for alleged invasion of privacy and breach of contract, the results of which she says have ruined her life.

I don't know, but I'd have to say that, perhaps, having the affair was the key problem here, rather than the bill. Hell, the husband could have just as easily opened the original mobile phone bill which was sent to the same house. It doesn't say so, but it seems likely that when the guy called to add services, Rogers asked if he wanted the bills consolidated and the guy just said yes.

Furthermore, the whole thing gets more bizarre later, when the story also claims that the "jilted third-party" later got access to the woman's voicemail and "harassed" her and "taunted" her (ex-)husband. And, on top of that, the article later notes "the wrongdoing that occurred in 2007 reoccurred" because the phone was still being billed to her husband's account in 2009. This part is left vague, but, it makes you wonder why two years after her husband had left her, she hadn't set up separate phone service for herself.

I'm sure it sucks to have all that happen, but it seems like a pretty big stretch to blame your mobile phone provider for the affair you had that caused your spouse to leave you...

Two separate initiatives by cable companies are coming together in conflict. We've seen how many cable companies are trying to set up video portals that will let subscribers to cable TV get access to the same content online, as a weak attempt to reduce churn of consumers dumping cable altogether and concentrating on online options. But, at the same time, they're also looking to implement broadband caps with high overage fees. Those two concepts are shown together with Rogers offering both a video portal and low metered caps with high overage fees. So your incentive is to not use the video portal (which apparently is limited in the first place). How is that going to reduce the churn? It seems like a far better option is to just go with another provider that actually focuses on adding value rather than limiting it. Too bad there's so little competition up in Canada. Ahhh... that explains things, now, doesn't it?

A whole bunch of folks have sent in this rather odd legal dispute up in Canada, with real estate firm Century 21 Canada suing telco Rogers and its subsidiary Zoocasa for creating what appears to be a real estate info portal/search engine. At issue: Zoocasa apparently scrapes various real estate listings, including those from Century 21 Canada, to provide them in its own search results, along with some additional info -- but still links back to the original Century 21 listing. In other words, it acts like a basic search engine. It's difficult to see how or why that should be against the law.

Of course, the real estate business has always been focused on bogus exclusions on data though the MLS system -- and apparently they don't like the idea of that data being more widely available. But, still, it's difficult to see what right Century 21 has to complain about, since the site links to Century 21 postings and should only provide them with more traffic. Unless, of course, its fear is that it can't compete by offering enough useful info on its own site.

Back in 2007, we wrote about how Canadian ISP Rogers was inserting its own content into certain webpages, such as Google's. The company was basically putting messages at the top to let people know they were using up their metered bandwidth limit. While it's nice that they were trying to better inform users, the methods were highly questionable -- injecting content into someone else's website just seemed creepy and intrusive. Rogers backed down... however, Michael Geist is reporting that some people have started seeing the notifications injected into their surfing yet again. In this case, it's not about bandwidth metering, but about parental controls. Either way, it seems bad. I'm sure Rogers wants better ways to communicate with customers, but shoving messages into the webpage they're surfing just seems excessive.

Rogers -- a Canadian telco -- has been attracting a lot of negative attention lately between deliberately disabling notifications for cellular roaming charges, setting ridiculous iPhone pricing plans and injecting its own content into Google's home page. As if that wasn't enough, Rogers has started hijacking failed DNS lookups. This means that when a user types in a web address that doesn't exist, instead of getting a "page not found" error, the user is redirected to a search page filled with banner ads and sponsored links. Michael Geist notes that there's an "opt-out" feature, but it doesn't take long to see that it's pretty pathetic. The "opt-out" sends a cookie which just redirects the user to a different Rogers page instead -- a fake "Internet Explorer" error page hosted on the same server. It does essentially the exact same thing, only pretending (poorly, for non-IE users) to revert back to expected behavior. And the option is reset whenever the browser's cookies are cleared. The comments on Geist's post are evidence that many Rogers customers are not pleased (myself included).

This isn't just annoying, it's also a security threat. It breaks how the internet was designed to work; a lot of software is written with the expectation that a DNS lookup for a non-existent domain name will return an error. For example, Kevin Dean notes in the comments on Geist's post how this has caused problems for him accessing his VPN. At first, he thought his computer had been compromised, since Rogers' new "feature" ends up resembling a hostile attempt to redirect traffic to an unknown server.

Some American ISPs already do this, such as Earthlink (which was used to demonstrate the security risk), though it seems to have a slightly better opt-out process, instructing users to configure alternate DNS servers instead of setting a browser cookie. VeriSign had originally tried to do something similar with SiteFinder back in 2003 (though not at the ISP level), but it didn't exactly go over too well. VeriSign reluctantly backed off, though it just recently obtained a patent on the concept. Rogers is the first Canadian ISP to implement the practice and it seems to think it won't meet much resistance. In another comment on Geist's post, Ian relates a telling quote from the FAQs page for Paxfire (the American company handling this for Rogers): "What feedback you do receive typically will come from a small group of highly technical users. Even that feedback tends to fall away after just a few weeks -- as they get used to the new behavior."

Rogers thinks it can just brush off complaints from its users, especially since there really isn't a lot of choice in the Canadian ISP market. However, Rogers should be careful in treading so brazenly into what some consider "net neutrality" territory. Bell Canada (one of Rogers' few competitors) has landed itself in front of a national regulatory body over its throttling practices. Rogers wants to have complete control over its network, but by continually pushing the line they only spur on the debate about net neutrality and government regulation. We haven't heard the last of this.

Part of the supposed appeal of the new 3G iPhone when it was announced by Steve Jobs a few months back was that it was going to be much cheaper than the old iPhone. That was true until you actually looked at the fine print. The $199 pricing only applied in the US to those who signed a long-term contract with AT&T -- for which you had to pay higher service fees. In other countries the story was also questionable. Up in Canada, the only national GSM provider, Rogers, caused a stir with ridiculously high service plans. After a rather loud protest, Rogers has pretended to relent by having a limited-time offer for cheaper data rates, though still not offering an unlimited plan. This has potential customers still pretty ticked off:

So, all early adopters that will ever be interested in the iPhone will have to buy by August 31. It's a ridiculous idea, and an obvious attempt to turn a concession demanded by the market into a cudgel against its customers -- not only can you not have an unlimited plan, but you can't buy at your leisure -- for example, waiting a few months to see if users reports overcharge horror stories from Rogers' miserly plans. You have to "buy now!!!, this offer is **limited**" What nonsense. If the plan is a bona fide effort to respond to a recognized customer need in a responsible manner, it should not be time limited.

Meanwhile, folks over in Belgium have a different problem. Due to laws forbidding the entirely reasonable practice of bundling goods together with subsidized pricing, you can only buy the phone at full price: which works out to nearly $1,000. On the good side, this has highlighted how dumb the "no subsidized bundling" law is, and politicians are looking to toss it out this fall.

With the news coming out this week that mobile operator Rogers was finally bringing the iPhone to Canada, almost every Canadian comment on it had something to do with just how badly everyone expected Rogers to rip people off with the iPhone. Apparently, Rogers has quite a reputation -- and it appears to be well deserved. Rob Hyndman points us to a story about the ridiculous roaming charges for those who use a Rogers device outside of Canada. Ridiculously high roaming charges are nothing new, of course. They happen to everyone, unfortunately. What's stunning, though, is that the reporter gets a guy at Rogers to admit that the company demands that all of the mobile devices it offers disable any feature that lets you see how much you've racked up in roaming charges. In other words, they know they're ripping you off -- and they want to make sure you don't realize by how much until it's too late.

If ever there were a short-term strategy, this would be it. This decision most likely "gets" some travelers the first time around (as it got the reporter in the article). However, it then pisses off those users such that they'll never use Rogers mobile phones out of the country ever again. In fact, I'd bet that many start looking at other options entirely. It seems like a plan designed to drive away customers, just for a short one-time ridiculously high charge. There are certainly companies out there that believe an informed customer is a bad customer, but those companies will often find that's not a particularly good plan to stay in business over the long term.