On Thursday November 28th 2013, the Treasury Board of Canada President (and champion of CASL) Tony Clement approved Industry Canada regulations in their final form. Today, December 4, 2013, the Minister of Industry the Right Honourable James Moore announced CASL will come into force on July 1, 2014. That’s right folks, six (6) month from now.
After almost ten (10) years of work, Canada has finally put into place an anti-spam law which continues their long-standing Canadian tradition of having opt-in consent. Most online marketers doing business in Canada today are already familiar with their “Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act” (PIPEDA) which is their privacy regulations that require opt-in for processing of PII, but now is enforceable specific to the use of digital channels like email and SMS.
The law imposes onerous opt-in and other responsibilities on marketers doing business online in Canada. It covers items such as the sending of Commercial Electronic Messages (CEM), prohibition of installing computer programs without consent, and sending messages with false or misleading information in the content or header. You can read more about their specifics here at the Oracle | Eloqua site Topliners.
Please note though that CASL is not restricted to residents or companies in Canada, it applies to all marketers sending email To: and From: Canada. The CRTC will work with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the US, and other regulatory commissions to enforce this new law.
Check out CAUCE’s announcement as well on this. They have a great timeline since this all started.
Anyways, if you have any questions on this please post them here and we will answer them to the best of our ability.
-Dennis
Don’t Just Send, Deliver!