David Canton’s post on Slaw yesterday rounds up many of the key issues facing lawyers, firms and other businesses that will soon need to comply with the recently passed “anti-spam act,” Bill C-28.
“If you think it won’t affect you because you don’t send mass emails trying to sell random products, and don’t infest other people’s computers with spyware, you would be wrong,” Canton writes. No kidding: the legislation covers all forms of electronic communications, and requires senders to be able to provide proof that a recipient specifically requested the information they received, should that recipient complain about the sender. Exactly what that means, though, and how it will be regulated, is still in question.
Here are a few rhetoricals Canton’s blog post throws out about the new laws:
- It is up to the sender to show that they have consent if there is a complaint. So will we need to track that to be safe, i.e. somehow track that you got my address from our web site, or the card I handed you?
- Am I restricted from sending personalized individual emails to a handful of influential people active on social media who I hope will spread whatever message I want to get out?
- Am I going to have to analyse each recipient to see how close or distant a connection they have under the exemptions, or how their email address has been published?
- How will senders possibly track all this, or find the time to do so?
Photo by jisakiel