Boycott Videotron!

Serge Sasseville, a legal representative for Videotron, one of Quebec's largest Internet Service Providers, has said that Videotron will release private customer information to the Canadian Recording Industry Assocation (CRIA). The CRIA is the canadian version of the infamous RIAA, who have made a business out of suing children and college students who share music files in the US.

Read more here (learnstuff.com)

I know that giving out customer information to third parties is an extremely unethical business practice and I'm pretty sure that it is in violation of Canada's privacy laws!

What can you do about this? A slashdotter has kindly posted an excerpt from Videotron's Customer Service Agreement:

12.4 Protection of personal information - The personal information supplied by the customer to Vidéotron shall be treated in accordance with Videotron's policy on the protection of personal information, which is available upon request at Videotron's customer service by telephone or at: serviceclient@videotron.ca.

For a start, you can send them an email or place a phone call asking them for a copy of their privacy policy. Under no circumstances should you purchase Videotron services or products. In fact, you should avoid their parent company Quebecor Media Inc. and all the companies they hold. These include:

If you have to use a major Internet access company in Canada then avoid Videotron by any means necessary. Use any one of Canada's other major Internet access companies including Shaw, Rogers, Sympatico or Telus. These companies are actually fighting the CRIA in the courts to protect your privacy rights instead of happily giving them away.


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