Canada's new anti-spam law comes into effect July 1
Businesses across Canada, especially smaller companies, are scrambling to prepare for Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, which comes into effect less than four weeks from now on July 1. Some say they simply won't be ready.
"We have to take action straight away," said Carol Sebert, principal at Creative Matters, a small carpet and rug design firm in Toronto. "Because the program we use right now, I can only send that email up to July 1."
The new law prevents businesses from sending commercial electronic messages — emails, texts or even social media messages — to Canadians without their consent. It's among the toughest of such laws in the world, with penalties up to $1 million for an individual violator and up to $10 million for a company that violates the legislation.
Sebert's company sends out an electronic newsletter about twice a month.
"That's a large part of our business," said Sebert, "We're sending a lot of images all the time to show past projects and just to remind them that we exist and this is what we do."
"That's how we generate business. I do have this company of 12 people, but I can't fly people all over the country to remind people that we exist. That's expensive."
Anti-spam law a surprise
Sebert was not aware of the legislation or the impending deadline until contacted by CBC News.
She is now learning as much as she can about the legislation and says it will have a dramatic effect on her company.
To begin with, she will have to obtain express consent from just about everyone on her mailing list in order to continue sending them emails.
But with email recipients all over the world, first she has to figure out which ones are in Canada.
"To write to all our Canadian clients and ask them to check off if they want to stay subscribed, well let's face it, a lot of people don't open it. Or they might not open it this month, they might open it next month," Sebert said.
"And we don't have very much time, do we?"
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