Post Tagged with: "spam"

The Electronic Commerce Protection Act – The Competition Act Provisions

Having reviewed the Electronic Commerce Protection Act provisions on anti-spam, enforcement, and do-not-call, the other major section in the bill are the provisions involving reforms to the Competition Act.  The ECPA makes several important amendments to the statute to better ensure that false or misleading representations in electronic messages are captured by the law.  This will mean that the Competition Bureau will have the power to investigate and take action against the use of false headers, false locator information, or the presence of false or misleading content in electronic messages.

The changes focus on parallel reforms to the false or misleading representation provisions and the deceptive marketing provisions.  The Competition Act will now include a lengthy new provision on false or misleading representations in an electronic message.  The three main offences, contained with Offences Related to Competition, are:

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April 30, 2009 Comments are Disabled News

The Electronic Commerce Protection Act – The Privacy Provisions

The Electronic Commerce Protection Act includes a noteworthy change to Canada's private sector privacy legislation (earlier posts on anti-spam provisions, enforcement, do-not-call). PIPEDA includes specific provisions dealing with the issue of consent for the collection of personal information, including the possibility of collecting personal information without knowledge or consent in certain circumstances.  The ECPA adds a new provision that effectively overrides this exception – ie. it requires consent.  The provisions are designed to target both spyware and the harvesting of email addresses or other collection of personal information without consent (a practice known as dictionary attacks).

The new PIPEDA Section 7.1(2) states:

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April 29, 2009 1 comment News

The Electronic Commerce Protection Act – The Enforcement Prohibitions

The Electronic Commerce Protection Act will accomplish little if there is not a real commitment to enforcement.  The enforcement provisions form the bulk of anti-spam bill (my review of the prohibitions here, the effect on the do-not-call list here).  The enforcement part of the bill includes details on who does the enforcing, investigative powers, and penalties associated with anti-spam violations.  The short version is that the CRTC has been given a wide range of investigatory powers, including the power to compel ISPs to preserve transmission data.  Once it concludes its investigation, it can pursue a settlement or bring a notice of violation.  The penalties run as high as $10 million.  There are also smaller roles for the Privacy Commissioner and Competition Bureau as well as provisions to facilitate anti-spam lawsuits.

The more detailed version is:

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April 28, 2009 3 comments News

The Electronic Commerce Protection Act – The Spam Prohibitions

The Electronic Commerce Protection Act (aka Bill C-27 or the anti-spam bill) is a lengthy, complicated piece of legislation.  At 69 pages, it involves many new prohibitions, enforcement measures, and changes to existing laws.  Given its complexity, I'll divide the substance of the bill into several separate postings.  This post focuses on the prohibitions – there are three primary prohibitions but it quickly gets complicated.  The short version of this is that the bill requires all senders to obtain express consent before sending commercial electronic messages (including email, instant message, etc.) and to include contact and unsubscribe information.  It also includes provisions designed to counter phishing, spyware, and botnets used to send spam.

The more detailed version is:

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April 24, 2009 24 comments News

Canada Introduces Electronic Commerce Protection Act (aka Anti-Spam Bill)

Four years after the National Task Force on Spam unanimously recommended that the Canadian government introduce anti-spam legislation, the Government today took an important step forward by tabling Bill C-27, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act (bill not online yet).   Although the bill requires careful study before commenting in any detail, […]

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April 24, 2009 7 comments News