Posted by Rob Ropars on June 1st, 2009
By now you’ve probably heard that on April 24, the Canadian government introduced a bill that would serve as Canada’s answer to the US CAN-SPAM Act. Known officially as the “Electronic Commerce Protection Act” (herein ECPA), it strives to establish new legislation around commercial email communications, including rules for opt-in and opt-out procedures, sender identification, and consumer privacy. This process is still in flux so it’s best to monitor the situation and wait for the final provisions before acting. That said, the early details do highlight at least five key differences between ECPA and CAN-SPAM.
Taken at first glance, this bill is both potentially stricter than CAN-SPAM and somewhat ambiguous in some of the areas it covers. Let’s take a look…
Requires advance permission to send commercial email
One area of ambiguity is a reference to allowing messages to be sent if “implied consent” exists between the sender and the recipient during the 18 months prior to the email. If you’re maintaining a strict opt-in/permission list, then this shouldn’t be an issue. Otherwise there may be some question about whether you can email specific people.
CAN-SPAM differs in that technically the law doesn’t outlaw one unsolicited message. It essentially allows anyone to mail anyone else at least once (as long as you include and honor any opt-out requests). Some ESPs (including SubscriberMail) take a more stringent stance (more in line with ECPA) requiring clients to only send to permission lists. Assuming you and/or your ESP are following best practices and only sending permission-based emails, then you’re ECPA-compliant already.
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Posted by Jordan Ayan on February 10th, 2006
Well three great things have happened this week for the email world. The first was AOL’s position change on their enhanced whitelist. Matt Blumberg at ReturnPath had a great post earlier in the week about this. Matt also did a great job on CNBC’s Power Lunch (you can see the video clip on his blog as well) explaining why the GoodMail/AOL plan to charge mailers for delivery was not good idea.
Today I learned that the Hawaii legislation mentioned in my earlier post was not brought out of committee, and is scheduled to be brought up again next week. This is due in part to reservations raised in testimony by the Hawaii Attorney General about the legislation (including references to CAN-SPAM and the potential legal hurdles). I spent time on the phone with several State Senators in Hawaii, and it was clear from our discussions that they realized they were not given all the facts. It is great to see a slow-down in this steamroller.
Finally, the court in Utah agreed to accept an amicus brief filed in the case their by several advertising organizations (including the Email Senders and Providers Coalition). The only down side to this is that one major organization was missing from the list. The DMA. I had great hopes after conversations with John Greco that the organization was changing, and posted about this last year. Well the DMA has burried their head in the sand and once again has turned its back on the electronic side of the direct response business.
In a speech to the New York Direct Mail Club Greco said “I’ve heard some people were puzzled or even disappointed that the DMA did not join the amicus brief filed a few weeks ago by … organizations to raise concerns over the Utah legislation,” he said. “We knew if we did participate, it would get spun as ‘DMA Attacks Efforts to Protect Children.’ You know that is what the headline would be.”
I guess regardless of the headline, those of us that pay dues to the DMA, would expect it would take the position that is best for its members.
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