Canadian Anti-Spam Law (CASL)

EQ Admin

EQ Forum Admin
Staff member
The Canadian anti-spam law (CASL) goes into effect in July 2014.

Some high level notes include:

  • If a Canadian spams, they're subject to the laws of the country they spammed, not the CASL.
  • The CASL does not apply to charity and politics fundraising, all those groups need to comply is a working unsubscribe process
  • You must track opt-in records for your addresses. If you work with a partner company who doesn't, you can be held liable.
  • Consent to email is good for 6 - 24 months depending on how often you interact with the customer
 

Spamfighter

Coalition Against unsolicited Commercial Email (CA
I think it important to note that charities and political parties exempt under CASL must be registered with the Canadian government, IOW, Canadian charities and political parties. All others are liable under CASL.
 

THERESA

Customer Service
A little off topic here but to clarify, are you from the company that makes the spamfighter software or is that just your username?
 

Spamfighter

Coalition Against unsolicited Commercial Email (CA
A little off topic here but to clarify, are you from the company that makes the spamfighter software or is that just your username?

Username.

Neil Schwartzman
Executive Director
Coalition Against unsolicited Commercial Email
CAUCE

Twitter : @cauce
 

EQ Admin

EQ Forum Admin
Staff member
Hi Neil,

I updated your profile to reflect your organization,

:welcome: to Email Questions!
 
I think it's important to distinguish between what the intent of a law is, versus how the law is enforced. In other words, you never really know the effects of a bill until sometime after it becomes law (typically a year).

With that in mind, email marketers who already follow best-practices for opt-ins (for mid-tier providers, MC is particularly good about enforcing these best practices) should be fine under CASL.

Best practices for opt-ins (for example, not using "old" lists", explaining how the recipient opted-in in the first place) are intrinsically good, resulting lower spam flags and complaints, higher engagement, and (the point of email marketing) higher conversions.
 
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