Canada
CRTC fines Compu-Finder $1.1 million for CASL violations
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is the principle agency tasked with enforcing Canada’s anti-spam law. Today they issued a Notice of Violation to Compu-Finder including a $1.1 million dollar fine for 4 violations of CASL. The violations include sending unsolicited email and having a non-working unsubscribe link. According to the CRTC, complaints about Compu-Finder accounted for 26% of all complaints submitted about this industry sector.
This is the first major fine announced under CASL.
One of the first things that jumped out at me about this is the action was taken against B2B mail. There are a lot of senders out there who think nothing of sending unsolicited emails to business addresses. In my experience, many B2B senders think permission is much less important for them than B2C senders. I think that this enforcement action demonstrates that, at least to the CRTC, permission is required for B2B mail.
The other thing that jumped out is that given the extent of the complaints (26%) the financial penalties were only slightly more than 10% of the $10M maximum penalty. It seems the CRTC is not blindly applying the maximum penalty, but is instead actually applying some discretion to the fines.
I’ve looked for the actual notice of violation, but haven’t been able to find a copy. If I find it, I will share.
Canada announces CASL regulation start date
This morning Industry Canada published its final regulations regarding the implementation of the Canadian Anti-Spam Law. Email related provisions of the law will take effect June 1, 2014.
What does this mean? It means that anyone sending mail from Canada or anyone sending mail that is accessed in Canada is required to have explicit opt-in consent for sending that mail, with a few exceptions. These exceptions include commercial electronic messages that are:
More on CASL
Three great articles on CASL.
- Does Canada’s Anti-Spam Law Really Make It Illegal To Email a Step-Parent or Great Uncle? No.
- Does Canada’s Anti-Spam Law Really Make It Illegal To Promote a Child’s Lemonade Stand? No.
- Does Canada’s Anti-Spam Law Really Stop Small Business From Using Email Marketing? No.
HT: Neil Schwartzman
Read MoreCanadian Anti-Spam Law
A few years ago, Canada passed an anti-spam law (CASL). In the time since then, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commissions (CRTC) have been working to establish the regulations to implement the law. Those regulations appear to have been published recently. Matt Vernhout, a email expert and Canadian citizen, published a link to the regulations and a summary of the rules.
There still doesn’t seem to be a firm date for when CASL will be enforced law. Matt says he’s hearing that the date will be around October. We’ll see if it slips from that.
Canadian Law
A anti-spam bill was passed out of committee Monday in Canada. Other than chatting over drinks with a large contingent of Canadians, I haven’t followed the story too closely. However, Matt V. has a detailed summary of the bill at EmailKarma.
Have a great weekend.