Post Tagged with: "casl"

Canadian Chamber of Commerce Attacks Anti-Spam Law: Challenges the Law’s Opt-In Requirement

For the past two days I’ve called attention to the shocking demands by business groups, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Marketing Association, and the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, to legalize spyware by permitting the secret installation of computer programs to monitor activities of Canadians suspected a potential contravention of the law (including laws such as copyright or any foreign law) or unauthorized use of a computer system (including wireless networks).

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce added its own submission to the government’s consultation on the anti-spam regulations. The Chamber’s key concern is the very foundation of the law: opt-in consent that requires businesses to obtain consent before sending commercial electronic messages (subject to a wide range of exceptions). The Chamber says:

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February 8, 2013 — 16 comments — News

Canadian Business Groups on Anti-Spam Jurisdiction: It’s a Problem Unless It Involves Our Spyware

Yesterday’s post on the coalition of business lobby groups support for a spyware provision in the Canadian anti-spam law attracted considerable attention, with many shocked at the breadth of the proposal. While the post focused on how the provision could be broadly interpreted to permit spyware to track copyright infringement, block websites, or to stop attempts to access wireless networks without authorization, it did not discuss yet another serious concern involving the jurisdictional scope of the provision. As noted in the post, the lobby groups, led by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Marketing Association, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, have asked the government to create an exception for the express consent requirement on software installation for:

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February 7, 2013 — 4 comments — News

Sony Rootkit Redux: Canadian Business Groups Lobby For Right To Install Spyware on Your Computer

The deadline for comments on Industry Canada’s draft anti-spam regulations passed earlier this week with a group of 13 industry associations – including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Marketing Association, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and the Entertainment Software Association of Canada – submitting a lengthy document  that, if adopted, would gut much of the law. The groups adopt radical interpretations of the law to argue for massive new loopholes or for the indefinite delay of several provisions. I will focus on some of the submissions shortly, but this post focuses on the return of an issue that was seemingly killed years ago: demands to permit surreptitious surveillance by the copyright owners and other groups for private enforcement purposes.

During the anti-spam law debates in 2009, copyright lobby groups promoted amendments that would have allowed for expansive surveillance of user computers. Coming on the heels of the Sony rootkit scandal, the government ultimately rejected those proposals (the Liberals had plans to propose such amendments but backed down), leaving in place an important provision that requires express consent prior to the installation of computer software. The provision states:

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February 6, 2013 — 94 comments — News

Does Canada’s Anti-Spam Law Really Discriminate Against Charities and Schools? No.

My earlier posts on Canada’s anti-spam law focused on claims about restrictions involving family and personal relationships as well as the exaggerated concerns about the impact on small and medium sized businesses. This post tackles one of the strangest criticisms of the Canadian anti-spam law to date: the claim that it discriminates against charities, schools, and other not-for-profit organizations. In fact, the opposite is true since the law features additional protections for these groups that are not otherwise available to conventional commercial businesses. 

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February 1, 2013 — 4 comments — News

Does Canada’s Anti-Spam Law Really Stop Small Business From Using Email Marketing? No.

The criticism against Canada’s anti-spam legislation extends beyond absurd claims about restrictions involving family and personal relationships. Indeed, much of the discussion has focused on the impact of the law on small and medium sized businesses. Barry Sookman catalogs a wide range of supposed concerns, most of which appear to envision a world in which the only way for a new business to develop a customer base is to obtain marketing lists and send unsolicited commercial emails to potential customers.

It is true that the starting point of the law is that businesses must have consent before sending commercial emails. Canada is moving to an opt-in world that gives consumers greater control over their in-boxes and will ultimately provide businesses with higher quality lists of people who genuinely want to receive their messages. Notwithstanding the default requirement for opt-in consent, however, the law contains numerous exceptions that are available to businesses of all sizes and which allow small and medium sized businesses to engage in active (and likely more effective) email campaigns. The exceptions include:

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January 31, 2013 — 11 comments — News
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