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Not in Canada?

I’ve always been of the opinion that the Internet for North Americans was more or less equal opportunity with no censorship.

I’ve always been of the opinion that the Internet for North Americans was more or less equal opportunity with no censorship. Maybe some websites with stores attached would divert you to the Canadian portal so you could shop in Canadian dollars, but otherwise I always thought that we were left to our own devices.

Recently it’s come to my attention that somebody, somewhere is withholding web content based on my Canadian IP address.

The first site I discovered this was Adult Swim (www.adultswim.com), which produces a lot of my favourite shows like Venture Bros. and Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law. (Yeah, I still watch cartoons. So what?)

After forcing me to watch a commercial a blue screen popped up advising me that, “we are currently not allowed to share our videos across United States borders. It sucks. We know.” Though disappointed I gave them points for honesty.

The next time I came across this type of warning was at Hulu (www.hulu.com), an extremely popular website owned by NBC that streams popular television shows and movies from the network. A pop-up window advises me that, “Our video library can only be streamed from within the United States”, but that “Hulu is committed to making its content available worldwide. To do so, we must work through a number of legal and business issues, including obtain international streaming rights.”

I’m also a frequent reader of posts at Digg.com and Reddit.com, and I’ve discovered that links to videos at sites like Comedy Central never work. I tried to find out why, and discovered that I had to go through the Canadian Comedy Network Portal, which is owned by CTV and has the broadcast rights. While the same shows are available, finding the exact link is next to impossible.

The online Pandora Radio network is also banned in Canada for the time being, although Last FM — a very similar service — seems to work just find.

Since Canada’s laws in this area are generally more liberal than in the U.S., I’m a bit confused why this is happening but I can guess that it originates from the companies providing the content that have distribution deals on both sides of the border, rather than any governmental body enforcing copyright.

It makes sense that a Canadian company that profits from running U.S. programming, and that has exclusive rights to that property, would not want anyone to stream those shows with different or no commercials attached.

But while I understand it, I also don’t like it. If the search engines can tailor ad content to users based on their search histories, surely companies can stream content with tailored ad content as well but substituting ads.

Maybe it’s logistics, maybe it’s legalities. And maybe the Canadian broadcast industry just doesn’t like the idea of people downloading programs instead of watching them on television, and is deliberately moving slowly to protect their ad revenue? I’m just saying.

 

Surf’s up for Google Chrome

Last week Google dove into the already crowded web browser market, evidently not content anymore to be the search engine that other browsers point to.

Google Chrome is positioning itself to be a next generation browser, a Web 2.0 portal that runs web applications.

I haven’t used Chrome yet, given Google’s decision to release the Windows Vista beta before versions for Apple or Linux.

But from what I understand Chrome uses the Webkit protocol also used by the Apple Safari browser — which is handy if you want to view files like PDFs directly in a browser window without opening a separate viewer. The interface also incorporates video, audio, games, and other dynamic content that you would expect of a modern browser.

Instead of a toolbar, it uses tabs that separate different windows, and the tabs are programmable to customize your experience. Chrome is also intuitive, allowed you to browse previews of your favourite sites and recent bookmarks on a single page, and to search some terms anonymously. Visually, the interface is pretty simple while also incorporating the same add-on features that made Firefox the number two browser on the market.

There are a few differences using Chrome, some of which are probably advantages to some users — the minimal design is good for small screens, for example. There’s also a good possibility that Google has a plan for Chrome that goes beyond simple browsing, and beyond providing a unified platform for Google’s range of products. One rumour suggests that it will also be available on cell phones pretty soon, allowing you to import bookmarks and other personal preferences between your computer and phone.

Chrome is also faster than other browsers, according to some early benchmark tests, but most people aren’t going to notice the fractions of a second we’re talking about for most web pages. Very little has been said about security, but apparently a few glitches have already been uncovered and patched.

My advice, if you’re a Windows user, is to download Chrome at www.google.com/chrome and try it for yourself for a few days. Because there are so many different computer languages at play in websites — Java, Flash, Python, etc. — every browser for every operating system seems to read sites a little differently, and Chrome needs to be tested in your life before it can be judged.