Recently, we have received an inceasing number of questions about the identification requirements found in the Canadian Anti-Spam Law (CASL). Usually the question relates to whether our clients are required to identify ExactTarget in emails they send to Canada, and if so, how they should go about doing so. Fortunately, this is a question we’ve seen before and one that has recently been clarified.
In May 2011, Al Iverson wrote to Shaun Brown of Canadian law firm nNovation LLP. Shaun’s full answer is very instructive, but the short version is:
"It is my personal view that ESPs, ad agencies, etc. do not need to identify themselves in the body of every message. I don't believe this was the intention of the multi-party identification requirements - including all of this information could even be seen as clutter and potentially confusing for the recipient. Of course, there is nothing to say that an ESP (or ad agency, for that matter) cannot be identified in the message if they want to be, and the client agrees."
Since then, of course, the CRTC has come out with its rules for implementing CASL and then released some further guidance just last month. In that new guidance, the CRTC says that CASL’s identification requirement does not include “persons situated between the person sending the message and the person on whose behalf the message is sent.” The example they give is of someone who facilitates the distribution of a message but does not have a role in the content of the message or the selection of the recipients of the message--which we think is a pretty good description of an email service provider and falls generally in line with what Shaun Brown told us last year.
Keep checking back as our email deliverability team continues to monitor this law as it develops.
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.
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