Top 5 Tips for CASL Compliance

Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) has its second anniversary on July 1st but a surprising number of Canadian businesses still haven’t taken the time to update their email practices and customer databases to ensure they are compliant with the law.   If you are one of them, it’s time to stop putting off the task.

Fines for violating CASL rules can be significant — as high as one million dollars for individuals and 10 million dollars for businesses.  The amount of the fines levied is at the sole discretion of the government, and so far, the government has signaled it is serious about penalizing CASL violators.  Several prominent companies have been fined for CASL violations including Rogers, Porter Airlines and Compu-finder, but smaller businesses should also take heed, as they are not exempt from the rules.

On top of this, when CASL’s transitional period ends on July 1st 2017 there will also be the threat of civil actions for CASL violations.  If you think […]

5 new CASL takeaways straight from the Chairman of the CRTC

CASL update from the CRTC

On March 22nd the Chairman of the CRTC, Mr. Jean-Pierre Blais, spoke to members of the Canadian Marketing Association in Toronto. Mr. Blais’ speech focused on Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) and served to give marketers an idea of what to expect in the near future covering a variety of topics from cybersecurity, the imminent second phase of the CASL law, to the legislation’s scope.

We’ve gone ahead and distilled the talk into some key takeaways:
CASL is here to stay
In his speech to the CMA, Mr. Blais made reference to the idea that many marketers consider him their enemy, likely speaking to some of the negative feedback the CRTC has received from Canadian marketers about the legislation. The message was clear: CASL “is here to stay”. In fact, Mr. Blais believes these laws will only get tougher with time as electronic fraud becomes more prevalent.
Not slaying dragons
While CASL isn’t going anywhere, he was quick to allay some of the fears that the CRTC was going to use […]

CASL: A Year In Review

Since the Canadian Anti Spam Law came into effect on July 1, 2014 we have seen three major penalties enforced by the CRTC. These enforcements were not a joke. All three were significant fines against the companies for violating CASL. As we all now know, the CRTC is serious in their efforts to try and reduce spammy electronic communications as well as proper permission management processes.

There were a number of reasons why these companies were fined. Essentially, there are three rules that you must abide by in order to stay on the right side of the law and these companies did not abide by one or all three of these basic rules:

1. Consent has to be obtained and proven; implied or expressed.
2. The sender’s contact information must be provided.
3. An unsubscribe mechanism must be in place and unsubscribes must be processed within 10 days.

To dive into number 1 a little further, […]

CASL Education – 6 things you need to know

Ever since the CRTC issued the Canadian Anti Spam Law (CASL) on July 1st 2014, digital marketers have been on edge. The new CASL law is not well understood and many have not spent the time to ensure that their email marketing practices are fully compliant. Once the CRTC slapped a 1.1 million dollar fine on Compu-Finer and then a $48,000 fine on Plentyoffish marketers were not only on edge, but they were spooked.

These two companies clearly violated the law, and they were punished for their mistakes. As a marketer you need to stay on the right side of the law.  Your email marketing efforts should keep the following six principles in mind in order to stay CASL compliant:

1. Confirmed Consent:

Using confirmed consent does not necessarily make your database CASL compliant. It’s an important part of being compliant, but there are other ways to ensure this by capturing the source and date of consent. Within the itracMarketer CASL compliance center, not only can […]

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