Canada’s Spam Law Now In Effect

Although passed in December 2010, the Canadian law went through a regulatory maze and did not go into effect until July 1 (which is also Canada Day) 2014.

The new law prohibits

sending of commercial electronic messages without the recipient’s express consent, including messages to email addresses and social networking accounts, and text messages sent to a cell phone;
alteration of transmission data in an electronic message which results in the message being delivered to a different destination without express consent
use of false or misleading representations online in the promotion of products or services;
collection of personal information through accessing a computer system in violation of federal law ; and
collection of electronic addresses by the use of computer programs or the use of such addresses, without permission (address harvesting).

The law establishes damages of $200 for email violation up to $1 million per day.

Private Right of Action Not Until 2017

The law phases in some key provisions, including:

a prohibition that addresses the unauthorized installation of computer programs or use of a bot to send email from another computer (January 2015); and
a private right of action which may proceed only if no governmental action (July 1, 2017).

In addition, a company has 36-months to convert implied consents based on a prior business relationship to express consents..