I got a call from David Noble today, regarding a potentially dangerous legal development. I've known David for several years, I greatly admire his critical abilities, I loved his book, The Religion of Technology, and I wish his analysis had greater exposure.

David is so skilled at being a gadfly and agitator that he has accumulated a fair number of enemies over the years. As a professor at York University, he might be the most disliked member of the York U community, at least as far as the administration is concerned.

At present he's suing the York University Foundation (YUF), and York President Lorna Marsden (among others) for libel, seeking damages of $25 million. I'm not going to get into the gritty details of his lawsuit, except to note that the act of libel in question took place via a press release published on the Internet by YUF.

As reported by Excalibur (York University's Newspaper), YUF has recently "filed a motion to strike down Noble's claim of libel because the press release that Noble claims defamed him, which was issued on the Internet, should fall under broadcast libel law."

While a motion is just a motion, if and when a court supports it, the consequences and implications could be massive, transforming the way the Internet (in Canada) is regulated. The Excalibur article quotes Queen's University professor Vincent Mosco, another critical scholar I admire:

"Bloggers would be deeply affected, certainly, by the application of broadcast law to their activities. But all of us who communicate by e-mail would have to operate very differently - our language would have to be used much more carefully," he explained.

"So, if a court were to say that e-mail is broadcasting, that would then require the Canadian government to rethink its entire legal and regulatory treatment of the Internet. I'm not sure how it would go about doing this because obviously it would be very difficult to license Internet users, or even the Internet service providers that we buy Internet use from.

"It strikes me as very difficult to imagine e-mail or web postings (and) treating it as broadcast communication," he said.

I've always held a rather uncommon position that the Canadian government should be in the business of regulating the Internet (in Canada), however this is not the way to do so, or the direction in which to proceed. Mind you, I find it highly improbable that YUF will be successful with this motion.

Nonetheless, it's an important development to monitor, given how many people, explicitly bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, and independent journalists, would be negatively impacted by a move to reclassify the Internet as broadcast media. Time for us all to spread the word on this to ensure that if the courts do make this move, it does not go unnoticed!