Did you know that you could be fined up to $10,000,000 under Canada's New Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) Bill C-28 per violation? Oh, and if you think that just because your business is located outside of Canada despite sending emails to Canadians, you are not affected, you are WRONG! Moreover, it's not just for email marketers, it applies to ALL forms of electronic messages. That means your social media campaigns, mobile marketing.... anythingdigital. While the law is not set to be implemented until mid-2012, for many companies this law will drastically change how they market to Canadian companies and individuals.
The new act establishes a regulatory framework to protect electronic commerce in Canada. Moreover, it's far more encompassing and restricting than CAN-SPAM. Where CAN-SPAM only addresses email, CASL (Bill C-28) covers SMS, Instant Messaging (IM), Spyware, Malware, Phishing, Pharming, as well as Social Networks. In short, it covers everything.
Essentially, this is Canada's first anti-spam legislation, and it is intended to send a strong message. Canada will not tolerate spam in any form. The legislation has major implications on how businesses conduct their communication practices with clients and potential clients. Businesses must have an opt-in/opt-out process to communicate with anyone electronically. And, more importantly, they must have consent before sending out an email....meaning you can kiss the practice of sending out emails to a purchased list of potential clients good-bye.
Potential Impact on Your Business
Violators can be fined up to $1 million for an individual and up to $10 million for an organization. Fines are imposed per violation, and the regulations may define some types of violations as being separate for each day that they continue, so the maximum amounts for these could therefore be imposed for each day that the law is found to have been violated. For example, a business that has been spamming for 10 days could conceivably be required to pay up to $100,000,000 in penalties. In addition, there is the risk of class action lawsuits.
What Can You Do To Be Prepared
- Canadian businesses or international businesses sending electronic messages in Canada need to review their email lists and make sure they have consent (either expressed or implied) from these people to receive commercial email. If there is no existing business relationship, companies have to get consent before the law is enacted and enforcement starts.
- Commercial electronic messages must provide recipients with a simple way to unsubscribe/opt out of future messages. Companies need to implement processes to remove addresses off email lists once someone has opted out without delay. This method must be active for 60 days from the day the electronic communication was sent.
- Companies should keep copies of website pages and confirmations to prove people have provided consent. This is necessary so that when a complaint is filed, the company has the ability to prove consent.
- Establish a policy for interacting with your subscribers across all technologies that will meet and/or exceed the requirements regardless of the medium.
- Segment your subscribers (and targets) based on expressed preferences, observed behaviors, demographics, and customer lifetime value.
- Use opt-in consent methods for capturing contact information.
- Only send emails when you have relevant and timely content.
- Use preference centers so that subscribers can choose the timing and frequency with which they receive emails.
- If you are relying on implied consent, use the two-year window to gather explicit consent.
- Ask unsubscribers an optional question, "Why are you unsubscribing?" so that you can learn how to improve/modify your campaigns based on this feedback.
While the final regulations have yet to be approved, the risk and exposure to for companies doing business in Canada could be severe. The new law will likely improve the business practices of Canadian companies around responsible advertising and communication. It will drive them to best practices of inbound marketing and content marketing to drive their lead generation campaigns. However, since so much spam originates from outside Canada and via botnets, it will be interesting to see how enforcement of this act and the impact on the total amount of spam we receive.
Want to learn more about how about Canada's New Ant-SPam Legislation (Bill C-28)? Download our free An Introduction to Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (Bill C-28) before it's too late.
View original post - Warning To ALL Companies: Canada's New Anti-Spam Legislation (Bill C-28) could Have You Paying $10,000,000 in Fines