“I don’t think we will see any impact.” — Reed Hastings, January 19
“The VPN crackdown is meeting fierce resistance from privacy activists and concerned users, with tens of thousands calling upon the streaming service to reverse its broad VPN ban.” — Torrent Freak, Feb 26
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Since Netflix came to Canada in September 2010, I’ve written 51 posts carrying the Netflix tag. I’ve sung the praises of Reed Hastings; objected to the anti-Netflix manipulation of data caps by our incumbents; defended Netflix’s right to operate in Canada over the self-serving protests of our media establishment; and sympathized with Netflix for the archaic treatment meted out to streaming services by the CRTC.
The longest pair of posts I’ve ever written (about 6,000 words) was on the attempt by the CRTC and selected media barons to make life as difficult as possible in Canada for Netflix. That was 2011: Get yer grimy paws off my Netflix: Ottawa’s big OTT scam (part 1, June 16; and part 2, June 18).
There was a single exception. I fell off the wagon when Netflix linked arms with Facebook and produced one of the worst privacy policies I’ve ever read: Netflix showing way too much love – for your Facebook data (Oct 2011).
Which brings us to the much bigger privacy problem Netflix has created for itself. Continue reading