E-commerce Archives

Technology Law Updates from the CAN-TECH Conference

I was pleased to speak on October 24 at the Canadian Technology Law Association (CAN-TECH) Fall Conference in Toronto. CAN-TECH is the national association representing Canadian technology lawyers. I participated in a panel alongside Catherine Lovrics (Marks & Clerk LLP) and Jenna Wilson (Wilson Lue LLP), moderated by Lisa Wallace (WeirFoulds LLP).

My talk was a follow up and update to my annual Toronto Computers Lawyers Group “Year in Review” of technology law talk. My talk covered a wide range of topics with a special focus on artificial intelligence, technology and online contracting, privacy and copyright.…

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Sookman it year in review talk presentation

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Technology Law: A Comprehensive Annual Review 2024-2025

Computer and IT Law: The Year in Review 2024–2025 – Toronto Computer Lawyers Group Presentation

On June 19, 2025, I had the pleasure of presenting my annual “Computer and IT Law: The Year in Review” to the Toronto Computer Lawyers Group. This year’s talk covered legal developments across a wide range of topics including artificial intelligence, copyright, social media, privacy, cybersecurity, blockchain, online contracting and eCommerce.

As in past years, I prepared a comprehensive written paper to accompany the presentation.…

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Year(s) in review – IT, Internet, AI, IP, Privacy & Blockchain

I had the pleasure of presenting the annual Year in Review of IT/Internet law to the Toronto Computer Lawyers Group on June 6, 2024. It was great to see a packed-in person event of IT lawyers after COVID. This year the presentation featured over 75 cases from many countries including Canada, the U.S., U.K., China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia

My presentation can be accessed at this link. The video recording of the presentation is accessible below. I blogged about some of the cases discussed and you can read all about them via links in the presentation.

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Top legal developments in e-commerce, privacy and intellectual property

Despite COVID-19, 2020 was an eventful year, chock full of impactful legal developments in e-commerce, technology, privacy, anti-spam, and intellectual property law. Here is a summary of my picks for the top legal developments.

e-commerce

Standard form online agreements and unconscionability

Online and in-App agreements are typically presented to users as “standard form”, “take it or leave it”, “boiler plate” forms. Most common are some variation of a “click-wrap”, “sign-in wrap”, or “browsewrap” agreement. They are used pervasively on websites and on Apps, among other locations.…

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E-commerce

COVID-19 and electronic contracting

For years, organizations have moved their businesses digital. To consummate transactions and to otherwise engage in contractual activities, organizations have increasingly relied on electronic means of contracting using everything from webwraps and clickwraps (and hybrid variations of these forms of agreements) and electronic documents executed using electronic signatures.

With the outbreak of COVID-19 there are increasing pressures to use electronic methods to effect legal activities including to enter into agreements traditionally done using paper and for other things such as signing and commissioning affidavits for use in courts.…

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Developments in computer, Internet and e-commerce law: the year in review (2018-2019)

I gave my annual presentation yesterday to the Toronto computer Lawyers’ Group on “The year in review in Computer, Internet and E-Commerce Law”. It covers the period from June 2018 to June 2019. The developments include cases from Canada, the U.S. the U.K., EU, Australia, South Africa, India and other countries.

The developments are organized into the broad topics of:

Privacy / Big Data / AI
Employee / HR
E-commerce / Online Agreements
Online Remedies / Governance / Jurisdiction
Copyright

The cases and other documents referred to are below.…

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Developments in computer, Internet and e-commerce law: the year in review (2017-2018)

I gave my annual presentation today to the Toronto computer Lawyers’ Group on “The year in review in Computer, Internet and E-Commerce Law”. It covers the period from June 2017 to June 2018. The developments include cases from Canada, the U.S. the U.K., Singapore, Australia, and other countries.

The developments are organized into the broad topics of:

Jurisdiction/Online Remedies/Conflicts of Laws
Hyperlinks/Search Results/Computer Generated Content
e-Commerce & Online Agreements
Technology Contracting
Privacy
Copyright
CASL.

The cases referred to are listed below.…

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The year in review: developments in computer, internet and e-commerce law (2016-2017)

I gave my annual presentation today to the Toronto computer Lawyers’ Group on “The year in review in Computer, Internet and E-Commerce Law”. It covered the period from June 2016 to June 2017. The developments included cases from Canada, the U.S. the U.K., and other EU and Commonwealth countries.

The developments were organized into the broad topics of: Online Liability/Intermediary Remedies, Copyright, Trade-marks/Domain Names, Technology Contracting, e-Commerce & Online Agreements, and Canada’s (despised) anti-spam/malware law, CASL

The cases referred to are listed below.…

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Browsewraps, fair dealing and Blacklock’s Reporter v Canada: a critical commentary

Blacklock’s Reporter is a small Canadian online news agency. Like many publishers it has challenges in enforcing its copyrights against unauthorized digital copying. To protect its rights it uses a subscription model to license content. It attempts to keep materials from unauthorized access and distribution by using a paywall. Recently the Federal Court in 1395804 Ontario Ltd. (Blacklock’s Reporter) v. Canada (Attorney General), 2016 FC 1255 concluded that the copyright in Blacklock’s news articles was not infringed when copies of articles lawfully obtained under a subscription by one subscriber were emailed to the Department of Finance and were then forwarded to others within the department.…

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Online vendors owe purchasers a duty of care says an Ontario court: Hazjizadeh v Canada

Online vendors will be interested in a recent decision of an Ontario court in Hazjizadeh v Canada (Attorney General), 2014 CanLII 48552 (ON SCSM). In the ruling the court held that online advertisers owe a duty of care to prospective purchasers to ensure that their representations are true and not misleading. If they breach this duty, they may be held liable in negligence for online statements which induce purchasers to engage in transactions.

Statements that appear on commercial websites can be characterized for legal purposes in different ways.…

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