Canadian Anti-Spam Regulations Published for Public Feedback

Canada’s anti-spam law took a glacial step towards being enacted when Industry Canada, after nearly two years of foot dragging, published their draft regulations and invited feedback from the public. Industry Canada, which is the government department responsible for economic development, has been the subject of much criticism for it’s steadfast refusal to speed up the process of getting the new anti-spam law officially enacted. The law was passed in 2010 and immediately drew a backlash from businesses who claimed it was too strict and demanded changes.

The new regulations include the elimination of a loophole that made emails sent within a business subject to being in violation of the law, and a potentially controversial change that allows businesses to send unsolicited messages to people if they were referred to them by a third party and that third party has a real connection to the person they referred. There’s no explanation of what exactly qualifies as a “real connection” though. There is a 30-day period in effect for public comment and then Industry Canada will revise the regulations and work with the Competition Bureau, and the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission to cut through all the bureaucratic red tape and get the law finally ready to be enacted.

Many Canadians have become impatient and want the law to go into effect ASAP. Industry Canada says sorry, not until July 2014-maybe. In contrast, the United States’ CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 was signed into law right away, and changes were made later. Unfortunately,Canada’s government is not willing to do the same.