Representatives from Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc. both pleaded with the nation's government to let them control the speed and flow of information through their services, which means they want to be able to meter their customers' Internet use.
For the uninitiated, Internet metering refers to any policy that lets Internet service providers curb or otherwise put caps on the amount of information a user downloads or uploads. It can also refer to practices that slow down or otherwise segregate Internet users into so-called fast and slow lanes online.
In the case of one of the Canadian Internet service giants, Rogers Communications only targets peer-to-peer upload traffic for metering. They shunt all P2P upload activity into the same slow lane, regardless of who's doing it.
But here's the problem: Rogers officials didn't disclose this practice to their customers, sparking outrage among government officials and consumer groups.
"I think that's a rather stunning disclosure, and one that should be disclosed to users," said Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa.
In the U.S., controversy over Internet metering has mostly centered around efforts to cap bandwidth use and curb peer-to-peer Internet activity.