Significant Penalty Issued for Alleged Violation of Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) recently issued a Notice of Violation, including a C$1.1 million penalty, against Compu-Finder for violation of Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL). According to the CRTC, Compu-Finder was responsible for four violations of CASL, including sending commercial emails without consent and sending messages in which the unsubscribe mechanisms did not function properly. The alleged violations occurred between July 2, 2014, and September 16, 2014, and the messages promoted various training courses. The CRTC also alleged that Compu-Finder accounted for 26% of all complaints submitted to the Spam Reporting Centre for the relevant industry sector. Compu-Finder was given 30 days to file a response.

TIP: The Canadian anti-spam legislation came into force last year and is a stringent law that requires opt-in consent to send many types of email messages. U.S. business sending messages to Canada should assess the extent to which CASL applies to their messages.