Last week the Canadian government introduced the Electronic Commerce Protection Act (ECPA), their counterpart to CAN SPAM. With similar regulations to CAN SPAM - it is legislation that will regulate commercial email communication, it include rules for opt-in and opt-out procedures, it requires sender identification and protects consumer privacy - there are also some important differences.
According to MarketingSherpa, there are five major
distinctions between Canada’s proposed ECPA and CAN SPAM:
1. Advanced permission is required- More stringent
in the definition of permission than CANSPAM, ECPA expressly forbids sending
commercial email without prior permission from recipient
2. Permission is required for SMS messages-
ECPA is not limited to email messages and defines an “electronic message”
broadly to include SMS and other text messages.
3. Longer unsubscribe link activation required-
Under ECPA, the unsubscribe link must stay active for 60 days after message is
sent instead of the 30 days that CAN SPAM requires.
4. Unsubscribe requests must be honored within
10 days- The Canadian legislation does not specify “business” days like CAN
SPAM does meaning the timeframe to honor unsubscribe requests will expire
sooner.
5. Individuals have the right to sue spammers- Unlike CAN SPAM’s private right of action provision that only protects ISP’s, ECPA gives individuals the right to sue spammers.
While the good news is that this servers as merely a
reminder to email marketers already following best practices, if you’ve got Canadian prospective students in
your prospect pool, this is something you need to have on your radar screen. Keep
these key differences in mind to make sure you’re compliant in the event that
Canada passes this new legislation.
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