Jackman-Atkinson: Little gain from pain

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By: Kate Jackman-Atkinson

myWestman.ca

You may recently have noticed a high volume of mail in your email inbox.  You can thank Canada’s new anti-spam legislation (CASL) for all those emails from businesses and groups asking you to opt into their mailing lists.

On July 1, CASL will come into effect and it will impact any individual or business that promotes products or services electronically, either by email, social media or instant messaging. The new law is aimed at reducing the amount of spam email with which Canadians must contend, but looking at my inbox, I don’t think it will have much of an impact.

Under the new rules, a business or individual must have obtained express or implied consent from the recipient of the message. Express consent means that someone has given the business their approval verbally or in writing to receive emails, but the onus is on the sender (i.e. the business owner) to prove you have consent. Consent obtained before the July 1st, 2014 will be considered valid. Implied consent means the sender has a personal or family relationship with the recipient or an existing business or non-business relationship.

Under the new legislation, all electronic messages must include specific information that identifies the sender as well as an unsubscribe option that allows the recipient to stop receiving a person or business’ emails

There are only a few senders who are exempt from CASL: registered charities, political parties and political candidates. There is an exemption under the governor-in-council regulations for messages sent by these groups where the primary purpose of the message is to raise funds for the charity or solicit donations for the political party.

This new legislation only applies to Canadian senders; foreign senders are exempt, assuming that they had no way of knowing that the recipient is located in Canada. It means that the most obnoxious spammers, those who offer cheap drugs, coupons and better borrowing rates, can continue to send away. It also means that the businesses and organizations that I legitimately want to hear from must now re-subscribe everyone on their mailing list.

The problem is that many people who don’t consider themselves spammers are considered spammers under the new legislation. As I understand the law, I can’t send a bulk email to all of my contacts letting them know about, say, our upcoming Christmas greeting issue, unless each one of those contacts is someone with whom we’ve done business in the last two years or someone with whom I have a personal relationship.  

The public relations firms that let us know about upcoming events coming to our community can no longer send me unsolicited emails. This means that I will now be fielding calls about news items that I would much rather be informed of via email. Worse yet, I will have to deal with both a phone call and email as the sender must obtain permission to send me an email informing me of an event.

Senders are erring on the side of caution since the cost of non-compliance is significant. The maximum amount of penalty for an individual is $1 million per violation, and for a business, it is $10 million. Directors, officers and agents of a corporation can be liable, if they directed, authorized, assented to, acquiesced in, or participated in the commission of the violation.

This is why over the last week, I am getting emails asking me to confirm my consent to receive emails from retailers, news lists and groups to which I am a member and have explicitly signed up for in the past.  I am still getting junk that is of no interest to me and gives me no option to unsubscribe.

The companies that are seeking my consent are ones in which I am interested to hear from and they already offer me the option to unsubscribe from their list. 

Despite my wasted time reconfirming my interest, I will continue to be annoyed by unsolicited emails that are outside the government’s control and legislation.