After a 14 month investigation by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (“Office”), the Office has concluded that Facebook breaches Canadian privacy law. The investigation was initiated by the Office after the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (“CIPPIC”) filed a Complaint in May 2008 against Facebook. | MORE

On July 20, 2009, the Government of Canada launched a consultation process to obtain input on copyright policy prior to amending the Copyright Act. | MORE

The Federal Court of Canada has upheld the constitutional validity of the data protection provisions of the Food and Drug Regulations (section C.08.004.1), as enacted in 2006. These provisions provide 8 years of market exclusivity for “innovative drugs”, as well as a 6-year no-file period, in which a generic manufacturer may not rely upon the innovator’s data in an Abbreviated New Drug Submission. The provisions also provide for a means to extend exclusivity by an additional 6-months if the innovator submits pediatric data for the innovative drug. | MORE

The U.K. National Portrait Gallery (NPG) has threatened to sue Derrick Coetzee, a Wikipedia volunteer, for downloading over 3,000 high-resolution images of paintings, drawings and photographs from its web site and for posting those images on Wikipedia. Mr. Coetzee circumvented preventative measures on the NPG’s web site in order to download the images. | MORE

Nokia Corporation has been subjected to a consumer boycott following criticism for having sold mobile network monitoring equipment to TCI, Iran’s state-run telecommunications provider, through its subsidiary, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN). Consumers supporting the boycott assert that the equipment sold to TCI is capable of deep packet inspection; which enables the interception of information transmitted over voice calls, SMS text messages, e-mail, and communications over social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter. | MORE

Following in the footsteps of Washington D.C., the City of Los Angeles is considering switching programs running on in-house computer networks to Google Apps – Google’s Internet based email and word processing programs. | MORE