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Bell Sympatico has announced a new service agreement with customers, allowing the company to "monitor or investigate" how their customers use their service and to "disclose any information necessary to satisfy any laws, regulations or other governmental request." The new customer service agreement took effect June 15.

Are you worried about this potentially toxic combination of commerce and security?

Jack Kapica, technology columnist for globeandmail.com, was on-line Wednesday to take your questions. The transcript of that discussion is at the bottom of this page.

The issue of monitoring Internet surfing runs deep.

Because the Bell moves were announced in advance of the expected reintroduction of a beefed-up Internet traffic monitoring bill, the so-called Modernization of Investigative Techniques Act, many customers worry that beyond merely complying with federal authorities, Bell's moves are also a blow against Net neutrality.

Mr. Kapica recently reported on bandwidth shaping, a technology employed by Internet service providers to monitor and regulate on-line traffic, particularly in an effort to reduce the amount of bandwidth file-sharers use and to charge heavy users a premium fee.

The technology, already in use by Rogers and Shaw, may eventually be used to charge users for using Voice over IP or file sharing.

Editor's Note: globeandmail.com editors will read and allow or reject each question/comment. Comments/questions may be edited for length or clarity. HTML is not allowed. We will not publish questions/comments that include personal attacks on participants in these discussions, that make false or unsubstantiated allegations, that purport to quote people or reports where the purported quote or fact cannot be easily verified, or questions/comments that include vulgar language or libellous statements. Preference will be given to readers who submit questions/comments using their full name and home town, rather than a pseudonym.

Donald Berkowitz from Maple, Ontario writes: What implications does bandwidth shaping have for ISP's arguments that they are merely a common carrier

Jack Kapica: As far as I'm concerned, the issue of losing their status as a common carrier is at the heart of ISPs adopting bandwidth-shaping tools. I think they would put themselves into a legal grey area, and the only way out of it would be left to the courts, I'm afraid.

None None from Guelph Canada writes: I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around this. All this does is hurt the average user. If a terroist wanted to send an email, what do you think he'll do? send it from home or drive up to an unsecured wireless connection to send it. Then guess what. The cops won't be busting down his door, they'll be busting down the door of the owner of the router. I recall a story from the filesharing lawsuits where they charge a woman who didn't even own a computer. Come on this is just plain wrong. What's next random strip searches?

Jack Kapica: You're making good points here. The problem is that in a post-9/11 world, a lot of stuff is being done for political reasons -- it's politically expedient to make grand patriotic gestures about fighting terrorism, which will go down well with the people who don't understand technology very well, and might even be still frightened of the Internet.

All your examples of how hide your identity are quite valid. But they're technical, not political.

Just look at what the US is doing about packet-sniffing.

Mike S from toronto Canada writes Hi Jack, any idea why Bell has initiated this now, rather than wait for legislation to go through?

Jack Kapica:  Ah, the million-dollar question: I'm glad you asked.

There's a suspicion going round -- repeated to me by Philippa Lawson of The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) -- that this story is a red herring put out by Bell.

Or it could be a simply red herring because of its timing in changing its end-user licence agreement on June 15.

In any case, the suspicion goes, this whole thing is a political cover for introducing bandwidth-shaping tools. These tools could be used to gather information about subscribers' activities, as Ottawa would demand, and Bell could therefore use the argument of compliance to justify buying the technology. In any case, bandwidth-shaping tools would introduce a longer, more damaging debate about ethics than one that said simply, hey, we're complying with the law.

d mellor from Canada writes: Will this mean bank account and other passwords will be in the hands of Big Brother? Joseph Molnar asks a similar question: I subscribe to Bell Sympatico as service provider and have for five or six years now. I pay for high speed internet as well as the usual Bell charges for their telephone lines. Until about two weeks ago the internet web site uploads was fast and had not varied during the intervening years of usage, However for the past two weeks the system has slowed down perceptibly to the point of dial-up speed ten years ago on a 28000kbs modem. Now that is slow. I contacted Sympatico who passed me off to a Bell techy. Two hours on the phone produced the results. Nothing wrong with the lines into my home. The tecky suggested my computer is causing the slowdown. Spy ware, ad ware infection working in the background slowing things down, he said. So I then downloaded anti-spyware application to test if my computer had anything of that nature causing the slowdown. The computer is clean. Besides the MAC computers are not susceptible to PC viruses anyway, although adware is a possibility.. The tonight on the six O'clock Global news they mentioned that Bell Sympatico has just now initiated monitoring their customers on line for whatever reason. Great! Having learned that monitoring is now taking place has me wondering if my system will regain the high speed or is the monitoring process the cause of the slowdown?

Jack Kapica: There are so many reasons that your Net speeds have slowed to the speed of molasses in January that it would be impossible to say which is to blame. In fact, Sympatico could use that evidence as an argument FOR bandwidth shaping -- making its Net access more efficient. And that would be fair. But I doubt your speed issues have much to do with Big Brother watching you.

And, d mellor, I sincerely doubt bank accounts and passwords would be part of any request -- and who knows anyway? Ottawa hasn't even drafter legislation, much less tabled it for debate.

There are two issues here: the legal concept of lawful access and one of compliance: As the law now stands, an ISP could simply refuse to cough up subscriber identity just because somebody wants to look at it. ISPs have that discretion now.

And this is what the bill introduced by the Liberals last fall tried to do -- remove the ability of an ISP to refuse to hand over subscriber identification without a warrant. The preliminary buzz on the Hill is that Stockwell Day is suggesting that the Tories' bill would do the same.

Moreover, we're talking only about things like name, e-mail address and phone number. It would not include your visits to sites promising to enhance your bedroom performance.

L White from Ottawa Canada writes: I'm confused. Does this new legislation mean that someone (Big Brother, if you will) can read your private email without your knowledge or consent?

Jack Kapica: No, it can't -- without a warrant. And a warrant would have to have enough justification for a judge to approve it to be sure that the police aren't simply going for a fishing expedition because you bought some fertilizer the other day. Remember, we also have rather strict legislation covering our privacy, so you can reject your image of a bunch of spooks sitting in a windowless room sniggering over your silly e-mails.

Matt in Toronto writes: Just to play devil's advocate for a moment, isn't it in the broader interests of society as a whole for governments to have a way of tracking terrorists or other malcontents online, so as to avoid another catastrophe like 9/11 -- and wouldn't tracking someone's online behaviour be an important way of doing that? The behaviour might not be enough for the RCMP to get a search warrant, but it might be suspicious enough that it deserved further investigation. Why should ISPs like Sympatico be exempt from assisting them in trying to track that kind of activity?

Jack Kapica: It's always been a daydream of rock-headed law-enforcement types to push for ways to track everyone they don't like, and so laws have been passed in Canada, the US and elsewhere to make sure the federal cops don't run around collecting evidence about people whose habits don't please a J. Edgar Hoover, for instance.

And they always say, well, you've got nothing to worry about if you did nothing wrong.

A swell-sounding argument, but as in the Hoover case, he was spying on a lot of people who did nothing wrong, and had collected immense files on a lot of innocent people.

Yes, society would be better served if the cops could tie a little bell around everybody's necks (sorry, pun NOT intended), but that would not only be an invasion of our privacy, but also create a horrendously large and expensive bureaucracy to handle it.

And that would be political suicide.

Anton Berger from Canada writes: so other than Bell, who else is there? Rodgers, Shaw, Telus; I wonder when they will follow suit? and will they learn from Bell's mistake, will they simply not announce it?

Jack Kapica: All Bell is saying is that if the Government should ask, in the proper way, for the identifiers to certain people, then it would co-operate with the government's request. Rogers, Shaw, Telus and all the rest all do that already.

This whole issue is one of Sympatico timing (changing the end-user licence agreement on June 15) and the suspected content of new legislation similar to the stuff the Liberals proposed last fall and which didn't raise a single eyebrow.

Essentially, this gives rise to yet another speculation (and I emphasize speculation) that Bell is just trying to cozy up to the federal government (as copyright lawyer Howard Knopf ion Ottawa thinks). Bell, an incumbent telco, has a lot to protect in the face of competition from the upstarts, and certainly doesn't want to antagonize the government over such things as law.

Ian from oakville, Canada writes: This sounds like ISPs putting up a smokescreen to me. There's no law yet, and no solid indication of what such a law might require, so it's ridiculous for ISPs to claim they're changing user agreements simply to reflect what they think the government might do in the future. Isn't the true goal here to try and put the blame on government, when the ISPs are really trying to bring in traffic-monitoring technology so that they can do bandwidth shaping and start charging for tiers of service?

Jack Kapica: Bingo. Why all the fuss?

As I said earlier, perhaps Bell is simply trying to use this as a distraction from the introduction of bandwidth-shaping tools.

I feel quite free to speculate about this because I have put in numerous calls to Bell to talk about Net neutrality, and Sympatico will not return any of my calls.

But boy, did it answer quickly this morning to the CP story on our front page. The response came, interestingly, from the legal department, which said in its press release this morning that "Bell Sympatico does not proactively monitor your use of the Service or the content of your e-mails."

Shane Dingman, globeandmail.com: Hi Jack, earlier reader victor penderell from Canada wondered: Would someone at Bell Sytmpatico please tell me when I was informed of this change in policy and subsequently agreed to it. Please forward a copy of my e-mail/letter/memo to me so that I may remember when I was so stupid as to agree to such an 'agreememt' and whether my lawyer was present at the time to ensure 'due consideration.'

He raises an interesting point: can you "reverse bill" a Sympatico users agreement to allow invasive monitoring? Are people being given the chance to say no to this the first time they attempt to surf the Web after the changes?

Jack Kapica:  You know, I'm a Sympatico subscriber too, and I never saw it. I know a lot of people who say that. Bell might have slipped it in at the bottom of one of those unbearable notices about some pop star's behaviour that you instantly delete. But I can't even get Sympatico to admit that. This is simply clumsy PR.

The notice I saw was on Sympatico's website, and all it did was give you a few sentences that were changed in the EULA. Out of context, they can sound either totally benign or totally sinister, depending on your politics, of course. Sympatico attached a notice: If you don't like it, you can unsubscribe. If you do not protest against the wording change, then you are bound by the new agreement as of June 15.

Oddly, I never read into that any desire to hand over your private details to the feds.

Jack Kapica: I just got the following rocket from Paolo Pasquini, at Bell Media relations, clarifying the situation:

Hi Jack, Paolo here from Bell, I am following your online chat about yesterday's news regarding Sympatico user agreements.

Some facts that you should be aware of:

1) Reporter implies with his wire story that we are monitoring our customers - an absolute incorrect statement. Our official statement sent out last night to this reporter and several other as follows:

a. Bell Canada has a long and established history of protecting the privacy of its customers. Bell collaborates with law enforcement agencies only when presented with legitimate court-ordered warrants. To suggest that we are illegally or routinely monitoring our customers is inaccurate and false.

2) The Bell Sympatico user agreement is in no way connected to pending bill C-74 in front of the House, as suggested. This is a standard user agreement accepted by our customers.

For clarity, here is the full clause in the Sympatico User Agreement in which the reporter did not capture correctly and is referring to:

Clause 17 of the Sympatico Service Agreement reads as follows:

User Information; Other Information. Your messages may be the subject of unauthorized third party interception and review. An individual with Internet access can cause, among other things, damage, incur expenses and enter into contractual obligations while on the Internet. All such matters are your sole responsibility. Your Service Provider has no obligation to monitor the Service, any content or your use of Your Service Provider's networks. However, you agree that Your Service Provider reserves the right from time to time to monitor the Service electronically, monitor or investigate content or your use of Your Service Provider's networks, including without limitation bandwidth consumption, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy any laws, regulations or other governmental request from any applicable jurisdiction, or as necessary to operate the Service or to protect itself or others.

You hereby acknowledge that Your Service Provider, its affiliates, agents and suppliers may retain and use any information, comments or ideas conveyed by you relating to the Service (including any products and services made available on the Service). This information may be used to provide you with better service.

Your Service Provider may send you Service related information on a regular basis via email addressed to your Sympatico parent email address. You agree to review and to familiarize yourself with all such Service related information, and Your Service Provider is not liable for any damage or detriment to you or your property resulting from your failure to do so. Your continued use of the Service following delivery of any such Service related information means that you accept and agree to comply with such information.

Paolo Pasquini, Associate Director

Bell Canada Media Relations

Globe Mail from Toronto writes: Following up on a previous question: if the city of Toronto provides universal wi-fi access, what impact will this have on internet surveillance? Are there plans in the works to find ways of tracking internet users who use unsecured wireless signals? Where I live in Toronto, my laptop picks up 4 or 5 unsecured wireless signals at any given time.

Jack Kapica: The City of Toronto will be offering free WiFi access for six months, and then start charging for it. And, like any Wi-Fi communication, it could be snooped upon -- if it isn't encrypted.

Slap a 128-bit encryption on it and you give the police a major headache, one that would make it forbiddingly expensive for fishing expeditions by law-enforcement types. For that kind of money, they're prefer to have some solid reason to snoop.

And of course you pick up several unsecured wireless signals around you. But none of them is from Toronto Hydro. You can be sure Hydro will demand encryption.

Shane Dingman, globeandmail.com: Well, that about does it for this chat.Thanks Jack for lending some clarity to this issue, and thanks to all the readers who participated.