Canada could become the first disenshittification nation - here's how

In 2026, the most consequential debate on digital policy will involve questioning why we are giving Big Tech free rein to leverage our courts to impose industrialized surveillance, quell innovation, and extract exorbitant rents. This policy was first introduced in the US in 1998 and imposed worldwide as a precondition of better trade agreements.

In the US, it was misleadingly called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Digital rights activist Cory Doctorow suggests a better term is anti-circumvention law. The law treats bypassing digital locks as a felony – even for otherwise legitimate purposes. Indeed, there are plenty of other hot policy issues on the table this year. But anti-circumvention laws give Big Tech the technical, legal, and financial tools to thwart the enforcement or intention of otherwise good policy on most of these issues.

I previously covered Doctorow’s speech to German digital activists, elaborating on the unexpected opportunity that ...