A few years back, you may recall, we covered how some content creators in Canada were looking to expand broadcast regulations to the internet. If you're not aware, Canadian law requires that broadcasters fund and promote a certain amount of Canadian-based content. The reason for it on television is so that Canadian television isn't dominated by American programming - and the idea here was that there was a similar "threat" online. Of course, unlike television, there is no limit to how much content is available, and artificially trying to force ISPs to fund and promote Canadian content just doesn't make any sense.

However, now, it appears that at least one company, Shaw - who is both a broadcaster and an internet provider in Canada - is trying to bring this issue back in a way, claiming that Netflix and Google TV should be subject to similar regulations. Of course, both of these aren't really broadcasters. They're service providers. But that issue seems lost on Shaw. It's especially bizarre in the case of Google, which isn't offering up its own content at all, but merely an interface to access other content online. If anything, this shows the rather obvious and hamfisted manner by which Shaw seeks to burden new technologies that might compete with it for attention.