Bill C-28/Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation

Do you email to Canada, from Canada, or have subscribers who may live part of the year in Canada? 

Anytime you use Canadian transmission lines to send electronic communications you should be aware of the new C-28/FISA bill that Canada is trying to pass into law.

Are you familiar with the US CAN SPAM laws?
Well there are several differences in this new Canadian law, namely:

• It will put an expiration date on the opt-in of 18 months. If your subscribers opted-in more than 18 months ago, you would either need to ask for renewed permissions or STOP SENDING.
• These new rules cover all electronic communications (email, SMS, IM, etc.)
• This bill requires you as a marketer to be able to prove that the recipient Opt-in (instead of the CAN SPAM approach which only mandates an easy way to Opt-out.)
• As a marketer, you must inform your subscribers on what they are going to receive.

For more info, here is a great site: http://www.inboxmarketer.com/Bill-C28.asp 

The US CAN-SPAM Laws De-Mystified

The United States Federal Trade Commission introduced CAN-SPAM legislation back in 2003 that requires marketers to abide by the following guidelines in order to send email to their mailing lists:

• A valid postal mailing address embedded in all commercial emails.
• A valid return email address or internet based reply mechanism that will function for at least 30 days after the sending date.
• A working “Unsubscribe” link that is clear and easy to find.
• When someone unsubscribes, you must honor that request within 10 business days.
• A subject line that is directly relevant to the content of the message.
• A piece of the message that clearly designates the message as an advertisement.

Then on 7/7/08, the US government updated these laws with the following requirements:

• Further definition that a PO Box is valid for a physical postal address in your messages.
• Redefines a “person” as: “an individual, group, unincorporated association, limited or general partnership, corporation or other business entity”.
• Sets criteria allowing multiple “senders” of a commercial email, under certain conditions, to identify a single company as the sole “designated sender” of the message.
• Requires marketers to make their opt-out process easy.