We frequently mention the CAN-SPAM act when talking about email marketing, largely because our client base tends to be American, even though we're located in Canada - home of maple syrup, moose, and lax spam laws. In fact, Canada is the only G-8 country without anti-spam legislation. For a while this was going to change, thanks to the Electronic Commerce Protection Act (ECPA), introduced through Bill C-27.
C-27 was born out of the recommendations of The Taskforce on Spam, (how's that for a name?) which gathered in 2004 to examine the issue of unsolicited commercial email. Its goal is to provide a "regulatory scheme" for spam prevention, including "administrative monetary penalties, with respect to both spam and related threats from unsolicited electronic contact, including identity theft,(9) phishing,(10) spyware,(11) viruses,(12) and botnets.(13)" (link) Further, it would provide avenues for individuals and companies who have been harmed by spam to make their own punitive claims against spammers.
Unfortunately in December of 2009 parliament ended and this bill vanished along with it.
The history of this bill does, however, provide some interesting insights into the way that the Canadian government, and more specifically Canadian industry, looks upon the topic of spam.
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