Canadian Eh? CASL Affects You Starting July 1st, 2014
Canada Anti Spam Legislation CASL comes into effect on July 1st, 2014
CASL is designed to help reduce spam in Canada but dramatically affects anyone doing business in Canada or from Canada.
Click here to be taken my updated email question where I outline what I have learned so far.
The law is far reaching and you need to be prepared. For some there will be little that they have to do to comply with this new law. Anyone who scrapes email addresses without consent is in for a big wake up. Penalties can be as high as $1,000,000 for individuals or $10,000,000 for companies. Buying email lists can be problematic as well.
When people sign up to your list you have to be transparent and explain that they will receive Commercial Electronic Messages (CEM). They must be proactive to join and allow you to market to them.
You must also provide an easy unsubscribe option and easy way to contact you.
Messages covered in the Law include and are not limited to email, text, emailed audio, emailed video, message service.
There are some exceptions and some grace periods. See the link above for details. There is also links to the actual government documents on that page. Also see my other blog posts for related details.
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My understanding is that this law becomes the toughest in the world. It includes Canspam which I believe USA and Briton and European countries are part of. It really is just being more strict and gives some tooth actively weeding out spammers in Canada. The goals are good but the affect on small business can be quite a headache.
My opinion is that it will actually do very little for the offshore spam problems.
Like any country Canada has many laws governing just about anything. Some make sense. Others we just have to learn to work with.
