{"id":4251,"date":"2014-06-17T15:54:34","date_gmt":"2014-06-17T19:54:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hellospark.ca\/en-us\/blog\/canadas-new-anti-spam-law-mailing-list-worth-10-million\/"},"modified":"2015-09-14T10:56:09","modified_gmt":"2015-09-14T14:56:09","slug":"canadas-new-anti-spam-law-mailing-list-worth-10-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hellospark.ca\/en-us\/blog\/canadas-new-anti-spam-law-mailing-list-worth-10-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s new anti-spam law: Is your mailing list worth $10 Million?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you heard? The new Canada Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) is coming into effect on July 1st<\/sup>, 2014, affecting the way Commercial Electronic Messages (CEM) are sent to recipients. These messages include emails, SMS, social media messages and more (a full list of CEMs is available on the Canadian Anti-Spam website<\/a>). The law also contains rules regarding the (altering of) electronic transmission of information and installing software on devices. In this post, we focus on CEMs and what you can do to comply with the new rules.<\/p>\n

By the way, if you aren’t a fan of reading and have 47 minutes and 46 seconds of spare time, this video also explains the anti-spam law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Why is the new law necessary? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Spam messages are widely thought of as unsolicited emails filling up your inbox that are impossible to unsubscribe from. However, spam can also include activities used to mislead the recipient online and either steal personal or private information, or literally turn your computer into a \u201czombie\u201d station serving as a resource to large hacker networks without you even knowing it. Here is a top 10 list of all sorts of scams in 2014<\/a>. Astroturfing or catfishing, anyone?<\/p>\n

According to the Cisco 2008\u00a0Annual Security Report, Canada was ranked fourth on the Spam by Originating Country list for\u00a02008. That is a shameful statistic by any standard. This law is to the benefit of all of us, let it be businesses, marketers or individuals.<\/p>\n

What happens if I don\u2019t comply? <\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the governing bodies of this regulation, the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) says \u00a0\u201cThe CRTC will have a number of compliance tools; one such being administrative monetary penalties (AMPs). The maximum AMP is $1\u00a0million per violation for an individual and $10\u00a0million per violation for entities, such as corporations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, they say money is the root of all evil, but these are serious numbers. Let\u2019s see how you can avoid these fines!<\/p>\n

What do I have to do?<\/strong><\/p>\n

To understand what you need to do, let’s\u00a0learn about the three requirements regarding the sending of electronic messages as stated by the new regulations:<\/p>\n

1. Express consent of the recipient<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are two types of consent: express and implied.<\/p>\n

Express consent<\/em><\/strong>: a potential recipient takes positive action to subscribe to your electronic messages. This means green light for messages as long as the recipient knows they can unsubscribe or contact you at any time.<\/p>\n

Implied consent<\/em><\/strong>: a potential recipient provided contact information in order to gain value, like in a pre-existing business relationship between the two parties or handing over a business card. In this context, you can message them only if the content of the message is directly related to the business purpose the contact information was shared for. For example: if you get a card at an online marketing tradeshow, you can send a message about your online campaigns or a special offer related to that. However, you if you want to sell them TVs or cars or your old sofa that would be considered spam.<\/p>\n

It is important to note that Canada is setting the bar high by requesting senders to pertain an opt-in consent<\/em><\/strong> from recipients (in the US, an option for opting-out is enough to avoid legal woes). This means that the user has to take positive action to initiate the relationship between you and them. It has always been a best practice to require express consent from your list members by asking them to toggle a checkbox or click on a link in an email sent to them.<\/p>\n

To Dos: <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n