Overlooking It Could Cost You Up To $10 Million in Fines
If you are a Canadian business owner or marketer, database di posta elettronica aziendale spamlink removed! (Edit: Admin.) I sincerely hope you will take some time to read this article - especially if you are not fully aware of the impact that this new legislation will have on your electronic communications. The Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) is positioned to be one of the most stringent anti-spam regimes in the world based upon its penalties and scope.Email-Database.gif deleted! Edit: Admin.
I am certainly not a lawyer nor am I part of the governing bodies that designed or will be regulating this legislation. I have however thoroughly read the legislation and listened to and asked specific questions to lawyers well versed in its content. So I am sharing my interpretation of the legislation and keeping this to what I consider to be the main points. You may want to dig deeper into the links provided should you feel you need more detail.
Note: If you are a charity, a politician seeking election (surprise, surprise), or a membership-based organizations, there are important exemptions for you so definitely dig deeper.
WHAT IS CASL (Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation)?
CASL is scheduled to come into effect July 1st, 2014 and will regulate all commercial electronic messages (CEM's), the software industry and the telecom industry. I will only be highlighting what applies to CEM's in this article. If you are in these aforementioned industries, dig deeper.
In a nutshell, when it comes to commercial electronic messages, CASL:
Prohibits sending CEM's to an electronic address without consent
Includes the following in electronic messages:
Emails
Text Messages
Instant Messaging account
Messages sent to your connections on social media
Messages posted to other people's social media profiles
This means you need to look at your current email lists and determine if you can prove consent. If not you will need to start taking action to gain the proper consent.
EXEMPTIONS
There are certain incidences where your electronic communications are exempt from the legislation. For a full list of exemptions, I recommend you review the legislation. The main ones you should know about are: if:
If you have personal or family relationship (immediate family only) with the sender - in other words you communicate regularly on a personal level with an individual.
If you and the party you are engaged with are in a commercial activity and the message consists solely of an inquiry or application to that activity (i.e. someone buys or enquires to buy your products or services).
Employees are communicating with each other about company matters ONLY.
Employees are communicating with other companies (think strategic partners, suppliers, 3rd party vendors) about a business relationship ONLY.
WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?
The fines are up to $1 million dollars for an individual and up to $10 million dollars for corporations.
You will most likely be reported by people on your list who feel you have not received their consent. These individual can claim compensation for damages of up to $200 per violation. There is speculation this could become a revenue maker for certain individuals (called anti-spam trolls), who will be trying to get you to communicate with them incorrectly in order to claim damages.
The governing body (CRTC) is claimed to be setting up "honey pot" email addresses to also try to uncover companies that are communicating incorrectly.
Owners and Directors of companies could be held liable for spam sent through company email addresses by their employees.
How To Get The Proper Consent Before July 1st, 2014.
After July 1st you cannot use CEM's to gain express consent. That means you can't email/text people to ask them if you can email/text them. It is considered spam. You can reach out by direct mail or telephone, but note that using the telephone may be considered telemarketing (another area regulated by the CRTC) and the oral consent you would get while allowed, is hard to prove).
There is a 3 year grace period where your existing contacts are considered implied (see Implied Consent below). However, after three years, you must have express consent or retire those contacts from your list.
TYPES OF CONSENT
Express Consent - This is the golden ticket. This is what you seek. Express consent lasts forever or until the recipient unsubscribes from your communications.
Implied Consent - This requires accurate tracking as it is time limited (typically to two years) and gives you limited options to gain long term express consent.
You have an existing business relationship or an existing non-business relationship (the latter applies mostly to charities, membership organizations) with the recipient
The recipient has conspicuously published their electronic address (like on a web page or their email signature)
The recipient has disclosed to the sender their electronic address (think business card)
GETTING EXPRESS CONSENT
There are some companies who have been sending out requests already to get consent. Unfortunately they haven't included all the necessary CASL requirements.
Some good news.
For those of you that can show some sort of consent from prior contacts (e.g. the recipient typed their email address into a field to indicate consent, the recipient had to click a link in order to verify they want to receive email communications from you, the recipient checked a box confirming consent), CASL has said they will honour these even though some of the elements below might be missing.
Going forward however you will need to include all the following into your consent form:
The purpose for which consent is being sought. E.g. ask the recipient's consent to receive commercial emails from {company name}.
The name of the sender, the business name, and/or the name of the person on whose behalf the message is sent (if any)
The mailing address, and one of the following:
a telephone number providing access to an agent or voice messaging system,
an email address or
a web address of the person/company seeking consent
A statement that the person can withdraw their consent at any time
An unsubscribe mechanism
If you are using a third party (e.g. Agency or Email Software Providers like Mail Chimp or Constant Contact), then this information has to be included as well.
You CANNOT:
Add a recipient to a list and simply say they have the right to unsubscribe (ie. Negative opt-in).
Have a pre-checked box that outlines consent to receive emails. Recipients must check the box themselves.
Bundle electronic communication consent with the sale of a product or service. There must be one option to purchase and a second option to receive company emails.
Review your email lists. Do you already have proof of Express consent?
If not, decide which ones are worth your time and money to pursue. If someone hasn't been actively communicating to your emails for years, perhaps it's not worth it.
For the ones you wish to pursue, draft the correct consent form (see Getting Express Consent above and the links to Examples of Approved Express Consent forms at the end of this article) and approach them prior to July 1st, 2014.
If you are using email software, beware of their rules for getting consent (double opt-in) from existing contacts. Sometimes the software will ban you from reaching out to that person more than once.
Keep better data on your contacts. Do you record them in a CRM and more importantly can you prove express consent going forward?
If you have employees, educate them on the spam laws. Remember you could be held responsible if they violate the legislation. Consider setting up policies around usage of company email addresses
RECOMMENDATIONS TO PREPARE FOR CASL NOW
Review your email lists. Do you already have proof of Express consent?
If not, decide which ones are worth your time and money to pursue. If someone hasn't been actively communicating to your emails for years, perhaps it's not worth it.
For the ones you wish to pursue, draft the correct consent form (see Getting Express Consent above and the links to Examples of Approved Express Consent forms at the end of this article) and approach them prior to July 1st, 2014.
If you are using email software, beware of their rules for getting consent (double opt-in) from existing contacts. Sometimes the software will ban you from reaching out to that person more than once.
Keep better data on your contacts. Do you record them in a CRM and more importantly can you prove express consent going forward?
If you have employees, educate them on the spam laws. Remember you could be held responsible if they violate the legislation. Consider setting up policies around usage of company email addresses
Topic: Email Marketing and Canada's New Anti-Spam Legislation (Read 569 times)