Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation

What You Need to Know about CASL

Created in 2014, CASL applies to all messages sent online viz; e-messages including emails, texts, and messages sent via social media, for individuals and businesses alike.

The legislation came into effect to protect Canadians against online threats, such as phishing, malware, computer viruses, spam, and so on!

If businesses are sending out an commercial electronic messages (CEM), they need to have consent from the recipients beforehand.

As per CASL, CEM is any message that encourages participation in a commercial activity. This includes advertisements and information about promotions, offers, business opportunities, events, etc.

Who needs to comply with CASL?

Essentially, any firm or organisation that sends commercial electronic messages to anyone in Canada must be aware of this. You may separate your Canadian subscribers and ensure your messages pass CASL if you segment your email lists such that they have their own category.

Or, you can just use the same standards for all your CEMs and opt-in processes, which is really nothing more than ethical email marketing best practices. Even though other countries may have less strict anti-spam laws, the people in those countries may feel just as frustrated about getting unwanted communications.

How email marketers achieve CASL compliance

There are three areas of focus for email marketers who must work to comply with CASL: consent, record-keeping, and exemptions. Let’s discuss each one in brief.

Consent: express or implied

Express consent, also called explicit consent, happens when a person actively chooses to give you permission to send them commercial electronic messages. The law describes this as a “positive” action step.

Examples of express consent include:

• Checking a box on your opt-in form that gives your company permission to email them.
• Filling out a survey that includes a question asking for permission to send marketing materials.
• Filling out a paper form at a live event.
• Dropping a business card in a bucket at a booth.
• Checking a box when making a purchase that gives permission to send marketing communications.

All of these and other examples represent a positive action step. Essentially, an individual must take some sort of action indicating they want to receive emails from your company.

Implied consent can be obtained through several means. The idea here is that the sender has some kind of existing business relationship or non-business relationship with the person who will be receiving the CEM.

Implied consent can come after someone makes a purchase or signs up for a free trial. It could come from someone giving you a business card at a tradeshow. Referrals are yet another example of presumed implied consent.

Implied consent could also mean that the sender found the recipient’s email on a company website, and used that to send them marketing. As long as the marketing being sent relates to their role at that company, and their site doesn’t explicitly forbid being solicited, this counts as implied consent for B2B marketers.

CASL compliance and record-keeping

If you’re failing to follow CASL guidelines, you’re more likely to discover this yourself if you’re keeping good records. And, if someone complains and a Canadian government agency begins investigating you, your records can make it easier to work with them and resolve the issue.

Good records allow you to respond professionally and show that you’re doing your best to comply with CASL.

How we do record-keeping:

• We keep evidence of consent
• We document the methods used to collect consent
• We have the information including these methods in our policies and procedures
• We keep a clear digital record of unsubscribes and the actions they took in response

Exemptions from CASL:

Here’s a brief list of communications that don’t need to worry about CASL compliance:

• Politics and many non-profit communications
• Shipping notices and electronic receipts
• Password reset emails
• Responses to complaints from customers and other customer service issues
• Legal obligations such as privacy policy notices
• Market research

How we follow CASL?

• In all our communication, we give an opt-in box to make sure the person wants to receive CEMs.
• IT Business Digest explicitly defines the purpose of obtaining consent to each recipient.
• IT Business Digest gives all the necessary details of the individual/company wanting to get consent.
• In each CEM, IT Business Digest gives contact information and all necessary details to get in touch.
• In each CEM, IT Business Digest gives the recipients an option to unsubscribe. If they do so, they will be unsubscribed with immediate effect and no further communication will be made.

Contact Us

If you have any questions or comments about this policy, the ways in which we collects and uses your information as per CASL guidelines, please do not hesitate to contact us at Privacy@itbusinessdigest.com