In a letter to the U.S.-based, web-streaming service on Monday, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications’ secretary general John Traversy said the CRTC has “the powers of a superior court . . . to enforce its orders” and oblige Netflix to provide confidential business data.
But he said the regulator has decided to carry on without the information.
Traversy, however, said the CRTC would expunge on Oct. 2 all public record of Netflix’s participation in public hearings on the broadcasting system if it continues to refuse to relinquish closely held information. The CRTC will base any regulatory outcomes on the data available.
In short, the CRTC wasn’t willing to take on Netflix and potentially lose badly. Thus they basically folded up their tent and went home while acting like they could have done something to force them to comply. And the fact that they’re going to delete any record of the participation of Netflix in the Let’s Talk TV hearings will not bother Netflix at all.
Also, you should recall that Google had a similar demand from the CRTC which Google blew off. Want to place a bet that the CRTC backs off of them too?
CRTC Blinks In The Battle Against Netflix
When I last talked about Netflix, the CRTC had demanded data on subscribers along with other info from the company. The response of Netflix was to use a Glee reference, “hell to the no.” So the question was, what would the CRTC do to an entity that they technically don’t regulate.
The answer according to The Toronto Star is nothing:
In a letter to the U.S.-based, web-streaming service on Monday, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications’ secretary general John Traversy said the CRTC has “the powers of a superior court . . . to enforce its orders” and oblige Netflix to provide confidential business data.
But he said the regulator has decided to carry on without the information.
Traversy, however, said the CRTC would expunge on Oct. 2 all public record of Netflix’s participation in public hearings on the broadcasting system if it continues to refuse to relinquish closely held information. The CRTC will base any regulatory outcomes on the data available.
In short, the CRTC wasn’t willing to take on Netflix and potentially lose badly. Thus they basically folded up their tent and went home while acting like they could have done something to force them to comply. And the fact that they’re going to delete any record of the participation of Netflix in the Let’s Talk TV hearings will not bother Netflix at all.
Also, you should recall that Google had a similar demand from the CRTC which Google blew off. Want to place a bet that the CRTC backs off of them too?
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This entry was posted on September 30, 2014 at 7:44 am and is filed under Commentary with tags CRTC, Google, Netflix. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.