With Canada’s anti-spam law now in effect, many are starting to ask about enforcement of the law. While no one should expect the law to eliminate spam, the goal much more modest: target the bad actors based in Canada and change the privacy culture by making opt-in consent the expected standard for consumer consents. The CRTC, the lead regulatory agency, has made it clear that the fear-mongering of million dollar penalties for inadvertent violations is not going to happen. Chair Jean-Pierre Blais recently stated:
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The Benefits of Consent
Commercial email did not grind to a halt the day after Canada’s anti-spam legislation took effect and neither did the coverage about the law’s impact (I appeared on CBC’s The Current to debate the issue). Coverage included Microsoft backtracking from its earlier decision to stop security update emails, apparently taking the time to actually read the legislation and find the exception for security notification. There was also a CBC story about the Canadian Avalanche Centre, which stopped an email service after hundred of customization options became “too much of a hassle to maintain”, but the CBC used the timing to link the decision to CASL.
But what really caught my attention was this tweet from Jason Faber, the marketing manager at BoldRadius.
Welcome to the New MichaelGeist.ca
Welcome to the new look MichaelGeist.ca. Months in the making, the site is new in just about every way: a new cleaner, more colourful design, new content management system (from Joomla to WordPress), updated content, new topic pages for the most popular issues discussed on the site, and better search and social media functionality. The new site still uses a Creative Commons licence and now adds dozens of photos that are also CC licensed.
My thanks to Willy Karam for his years of assistance on the old site, to Amanda Lutz for her work in transitioning to the new site, to students such as Emily Murray and Alexandra Lyn for their help updating content, and to the many creators who use Creative Commons to make their work available to others.
While we have worked hard to ensure a seamless transition, any major website overhaul that transfer thousands of posts and tens of thousands of comments is bound to have unforeseen issues. Readers are invited to provide feedback and to notify me know of anything they encounter that does not work as it should.
Keep Calm and Get Consent: Canada’s Anti-Spam Law Takes Effect This Week
Canada’s anti-spam legislation takes effect this week, sparking panic among many businesses, who fear that sending commercial electronic messages may grind to a halt on July 1st. The reality is far less troubling. The new law creates some technical requirements for commercial email marketing alongside tough penalties for violations, but left unsaid is that Canadian law has featured rules requiring appropriate consents for over a decade.
My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version)The concern over the new anti-spam law, which mirrors similar worries from 2004 when private sector privacy legislation arrived, suggests that many may not have complied with their existing obligations. As Canadians receive a flood of requests for consent from long-forgotten organizations they never realized had collected and used their personal information in the first place, the controversy over the rollout of the new anti-spam law says more about poor compliance rates with current privacy laws than it does about the new regulations.
Should Canadian Courts Decide What the World Gets to See Online?
The challenge of jurisdiction and the Internet has long been one of the most contentious online legal issues. Given that the Internet has little regard for conventional borders, the question of whose law applies, which court gets to apply it, and how it can be enforced is seemingly always a challenge.
Striking the right balance can be exceptionally difficult: if courts are unable to assert jurisdiction, the Internet becomes a proverbial “wild west” with no applicable law. Conversely, if every court asserts jurisdiction, the Internet becomes over-regulated with a myriad of potentially conflicting laws vying to govern online activities.
My weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes that in recent years, courts in many countries have adopted a reasonable balance where they are willing to assert jurisdiction over online activities or companies where there is a “real and substantial” connection, but they limit the scope of enforcing their rulings to their own jurisdiction. In other words, companies cannot disregard local laws where they operate there, but courts similarly should not disregard the prospect of conflicting rules between different countries.
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Why Bill C-2 Faces a Likely Constitutional Challenge By Placing Solicitor-Client Privilege at Risk 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 237: A Conversation with Jason Woywada of BCFIPA on Political Party Privacy and Bill C-4 
Lawful Access on Steroids: Why Bill C-2’s Big Brother Tactics Combine Expansive Warrantless Disclosure with Unprecedented Secrecy 
Government Reverses on Privacy and the Charter: Department of Justice Analysis Concludes Political Party Privacy Bill Raises No Charter of Rights Effects 
“Big Brother Tactics”: Why Bill C-2’s New Warrantless Disclosure Demand Powers Extend Far Beyond Internet and Telecom Providers
