Tag: Canada

January 25, 2005

  • Canada Post Launches Fetch

    Canada Post is about to launch Fetch. The site is now live at www.fetch4.info.

    There was a brief Globetechnology article about the fact that Fetch is being piloted in Calgary (which is somewhat unusual).

    This quote from the article does a good job of explaining the service at a very high level.

    “The Fetch service allows a user to set up an account with Canada Post, and input personal contact information in confidence. When users see an advertisement from a company participating in Fetch, they request that information be sent to that on-line account, either by entering a text message on a cellphone, or through an interactive voice system.

    Advertisers would pay only when a consumer requests one of their offers, and individuals would pay nothing for the service.”

    Congrats to Warren and Tim for getting this off the ground after a huge amount of internal work.

    It will be very interesting to see how this turns out. My guess is it will be a fundamentally new way of protecting consumer privacy while letting marketing through the veil, or it will be a flop. I doubt there is a half-way for this type of model. I’m hoping for the former as I like the idea of bringing greater interactivity to the offline environment.

October 13, 2004

  • Thought

    It’s nice to see that we now have a version of Creative Commons licensing that works within the Canadian legal system. It’s also nice to see that they have foregone a separate process and have integrated the Canadian version into the overall CC License process. (via the Creative Commons Weblog)

October 30, 2003

  • Thought

    CNET.com: Cyberpiracy north of the border:

    “CNET News.com spoke to Michael Geist, the Canada research chair in Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, about copyrights, spam and other topics. Geist is also technology counsel to Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt, and he writes a newspaper column on cyberlaw.”

July 3, 2003

  • Thought

    Lovely article in the Washington Post called “Whoa! Canada!”

    “Just when you had all but forgotten that carbon-based life exists above the 49th parallel, those sly Canadians have redefined their entire nation as Berkeley North.

    “It’s like we woke up and suddenly we’re a European country,” says Canadian television satirist Rick Mercer.”

August 24, 2001