The Email Delivery Guru

We're beginning our new blog post series of answering your follow-up questions on Canada's new Anti-Spam Law (CASL). Today, I'll answer this question: For financial institutions, is there always implied consent provided the lead continues to be a customer?

There's an allowance under the law for an assumption of permission allowing you to mail existing customers. However, that exemption expires after a period of time, so you've got to track these subscribers in a way where you're able to expire them out after a period of time. Instead of doing that, our recommendation is to just ask for permission up front -- get that consent that the law requires, and then you won't have to worry about whether or not they're an existing customer and you won't need to track when that implied permission expires.

Note that an "automatic" opt-in isn't allowed. Our understanding that it must be something the consumer chooses, for example, an opt-in checkbox that the subscriber must click in order to opt-in to followup marketing messages.

And finally, I'm not aware of anything in CASL treating mail from financial institutions any differently than mail from any other sender.

Note: I am not an attorney licensed to practice in any jurisdiction. I can only provide my own understanding as an expert in email related issues. For actual legal advice, you need to pay an attorney for his time so that the vagaries of the law as they may apply in your specific circumstances can be accounted for.