Canadian Anti-Spam Law Update
Posted by Rob Ropars on March 18th, 2010
I wanted to share a quick update on Canada’s anti-spam bill (aka C-27/ECPA) which will impact email marketing efforts within Canada. As I reported previously, in June of last year, the Canadian government has been working on an anti-spam law.
The US Congress has been using an interesting glossary of terms in the public debate over health care lately (“reconciliation” and “deem and pass” for example), the Canadian Parliament was not to be outdone when they announced that their parliament had been “prorogued.” Essentially, this is defined as discontinuing a session of parliament.
The Canadian Prime Minister had the current parliament prorogued at the end of 2009, and all work on legislation ceased temporarily (including C-27). I will digress from discussing any of the many theories as to why this action was taken.
The Canadian Parliament has since reconvened as of March 3rd, and their work can now resume in two ways: start over or continue from where they left off.
CAUCE- Canada posted a letter on their site from Tony Clement, the Canadian Minister of Industry, which details the plan to reinstate C-27 specifically.
A vote to reinstate C-27 could occur in the next few weeks. It appears, given the overall support for the measure, that sooner or later the bill will become law, possibly in 2010. If the parliament fails to reinstate the process, it would likely mean it will be reintroduced from scratch.
As always, we at SubscriberMail will continue to monitor developments and provide status updates as they become available.
If the anti-spam law does come into effect, it essentially means that emails can only sent to those that have specifically ‘opted-in’ to receive the emails from a specific business entity, correct?
So email campaigns that simply give the recipient the option of opting out is insufficient measure if the original email lists have been attained in any other way than individual opt-in’s?
Seb: Correct on both counts. That said, you should know that PIPEDA, the Canadian Privacy law, already mandates Canada as an entirely opt-in régime.
–
Neil Schwartzman
Executive Director
CAUCE: The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email
Canada: +1 (514) 300 1916
US: +1 (303) 800 6345
Skype: spamfighter666
Fax: +1 (419) 793 0430
[Web]: http://cauce.org
[Twitter] http://twitter.com/cauce
See http://stopspamhere.ca for ways to prevent spam from hitting your inbox.