Blog

By Bob Reaume, ACA

As of this week – that’s during the last month of the year if you’re being observant – the complete regulations that advertisers will need to work within to comply and navigate the new anti-spam law are finally known. (Notice I didn’t say ‘the complete picture’, since some interpretation still needs clarity.)

Nonetheless, Canada’s long-awaited Anti-Spam legislation will go into force mid-year in 2014, more than four full years after it was first introduced in Parliament for first reading. Seems like a long time, doesn’t it? And it’s not like we didn’t need some legislation to address spam since Canada was the only developed country without such a law. However, the fact that this particular piece of legislation took so long is a good thing. From the very start it needed changes and that’s when we went to work.

ACA and several like-minded parties fought hard to have the regulations flowing from this law adjusted so that non-spammy businesses could continue to use modern digital technologies in legitimate ways to advance commerce. And we came a long way. Have a look at the final regulations, and stay tuned as well for the announcement of dates for webinars (exclusive and free for ACA members) being planned for mid-January to assist members on how to become compliant with the new regulations.