For marketers, specifically those working with email marketing or cold contacts, this law is incredibly important. This law pertains to all electronic messaging, including:
- Instant messages
- Emails
- Text messages
- Messages on social media accounts
Basically, this means that if you send a spam message to someone within the Canadian border, you could get into a lot of trouble. In fact, the penalty for an individual who violates Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (CASL) is a fine of up to $1 million (795,350 USD). If a company were to violate CASL, they may have to pay a fine of up to $10 million (7,953,500 USD). This is the fine per violation, so if a business sent multiple spam emails to residents in Canada, the numbers would add up quickly.
In order to make sure you don’t get fined, you need to secure consent from all message receivers. Since you might not be able to tell if you are sending a message to someone in Canada, a good rule of thumb is to always get consent. This can be as simple as having those who want to receive messages click a “subscribe” button, or have them sign up with an email address.
This also means that if someone gave consent before, but then decided to unsubscribe from getting your messages, you would have to comply.
