CRTC wont regulate internet

[OpenMike]

CRTC chairman dismisses talk of Internet regulation

In his speech to the Canadian Association of Broadcasters on Monday, Konrad von Finckenstein, CRTC chairman, said the regulator's review of new media has nothing to do with regulating the Internet. Rather, it is about regulating the broadcasting that makes its way on the Internet.

The head of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission wanted to put to rest any notion he was looking to reopen the regulator's 1999 decision to exempt new media from regulation. This year, Mr. von Finckenstein launched what is called the new media project initiative, under which industry and government stakeholders are looking at regulatory issues of content and access that have emerged with the arrival of new technologies. He spoke about the initiative at length in a speech last month in London.

"Since we are the regulators of broadcasting, our main focus is on commercial television delivered over the Internet and through mobile devices," the chairman told delegates at the CAB conference. "We are only interested in content that is professionally produced. We are not concerned with all the other aspects of new media, such as the way it may alter consumer behaviour, facilitate the production of user-generated content or establish new forms of social networking."