What Canada’s New Anti-Spam Legislation Means for your Email Marketing Campaigns

CASL is scheduled to go into effect July 1, 2014. As we close in on the enforcement date we thought it would be a good idea to mention some of the more important pieces of the new law.

There are three requirements when sending commercial electronic messages (CEM)s. You must have consent, provide contact information, and provide a method for consumers to unsubscribe from future messages.

• Consent – There are two types of consent, implied and explicit. Consent is implied for a 36 month period starting July 1, 2014 where a valid relationship exists. However, implied consent can be withdrawn at any time if the consumer opts out of future messages. The three year period can be used to collect explicit consent as well. Explicit consent does not expire, and it is only terminated if the consumer chooses to stop receiving messages. Express consent can be collected many ways, though the easiest is electronically through the use of an opt in agreement.

• Contact Information – Everyone who has a material role sending CEMs must identify themselves and provide a valid mailing address where they can be contacted. Parties that create or control the content of the message as well as the parties that determine the recipients of the message need to identify themselves. For example the advertiser and the publisher would identify themselves, however the email provider would not be considered as playing a material role and as a result not need to identify themselves

• Unsubscribe – All forms of CEMs whether email or SMS message must give the recipient the ability to opt out of future messages. In addition the means of unsubscribing must be simple, quick, and easy for the customer to use and must be available for 60 days after the message is sent. The sender must add any opt outs to a suppression list within 10 days of receiving them.

For more information about Canada’s anti-spam legislation please visit http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2012/2012-548.htm.

If you would like to find out how we can manage both your suppression and opt in lists, please give us a call.