Canadian Coffee Chain Ineptly Blocks Cannabis Searches On Their Public Wi-Fi

CLR has the same issue in public libraries in Australia, but a private business in a country with federally regulated cannabis? Leafly report, “Take Canadian coffee chain Tim Hortons and the internet filter system it uses on its free, publicly accessible WiFi for its customers at every location across Canada, a service provided in conjunction with Bell Mobility.”

Here’s the report and it’s interesting to note that they couldn’t access their own site or govt sanctioned Ontario Cannabis Store but could access the landing pages of at least 5 illegal cannabis supply sites …Oops !

The terms and agreements that one must accept in order to get access to the service include a provision that the service has no liability for the content accessed through its service.

“Be aware that some content, products or services may be offensive to you or may not comply with applicable laws where you access the Services.”

However, the terms do not mention the possibility of the service blocking access to some sites, including cannabis-related websites. Surely, we can have blocks for pornography, but is it necessary for legal cannabis content? (For the record, we did not check the reliability of the chain’s porn blocking capabilities, for obvious reasons.)

Leafly attempted to browse a number of cannabis websites, with differing success. Websites such as the Ontario Cannabis Store, Tilray, and even our own Leafly website were completely blocked, with a notice that read: “Access to this page has been blocked due to inappropriate content,” followed by an email address that Tim Hortons WiFi users can contact.

Ironically, Leafly could access the landing pages of no less than five illegal mail order cannabis websites during its tests.

https://www.leafly.com/news/lifestyle/tim-hortons-wifi-blocks-legal-cannabis-websites

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