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Re: Effects of Canadian Anti-spam legislation on accessibility

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From: Karlen Communications
Date: Jul 1, 2014 4:15AM

Many companies in Canada, including adaptive technology vendors, over the
past two weeks have been sending out e-mail with consent instructions to
continue corresponding. I did notice that none of the companies that send me
bills electronically or bill notifications electronically have done so. Am
not sure if this means that they have legal advice that the CASL (Canadian
Anti-Spam Legislation) does not apply to them or, like everyone else, the
implementation date has been a well-kept secret.

The legislation also applies to voice communication originating in Canada
which means hopefully there will be a lot less telemarketing and robo calls
unless you consent to them.

The legislation covers anything considered CEM or Commercial Electronic
Messages originating in Canada. It does extend to social media but gets
quite tricky when doing so. For example, as I understand it, a Facebook wall
is OK but mailing people using a Facebook account without their expressed
and archived in a database permission, is not allowed.

As with most legislation, there are some vague parts to it open to a huge
range of interpretation.

The law covers anything sent within Canada so is not going to stop the spam
sent from outside Canada and does not affect any companies requesting
assistance without first consenting to communication if the originating
e-mail is sent from outside Canada...as I understand it. I'm adding an "I
consent to communication" link to my website for future clients and have
contacted most of my existing ones in Canada to get permission to continue
talking to them about business.

There are many of us who are still finding out about this new law even
though it goes into effect today and the few news stories I've seen on it
state that it is the most aggressive anti-spam legislation in the world.
Perhaps telling us about it ahead of time would have been considered spam?
LOL

The fines are significant and in the millions of dollars. In terms of
enforcement, no one wants to be the test case, on the other hand the
government can't even enforce the Accessibility for Ontarians with
Disabilities Act so am not sure how the CASL will be enforced. I do realize
that one is federal and one is provincial.

Anyway, should be interesting.

For those who are interested, or who are in Canada and only hearing about
this legislation now, here is the home page for the legislation:
http://www.fightspam.gc.ca/eic/site/030.nsf/eng/home

Cheers, Karen