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This article examines the strategies for blocking a “smart city” project developed in Toronto, originally with the intention of becoming an international model. The aim is not to explore the dynamics around the circulation and reception of an urban planning model and its “good practices”, but rather to study resistance to the construction of a new, locally produced standard that its advocates plan to disseminate. To this end, our analysis draws on the case study of a French think tank working on the future of cities. Through it, we show that private actors on the periphery of institutional space contribute to the formalization and dissemination of critiques against a “smart city” project based on the extensive use of data and on a strong public-private partnership.