CASL: 5 minutes of work that may save you a ton of money in future
Dissecting CASL. Part 2
CASL…
These four letters make every Canadian entrepreneur’s heart beat a little faster.
If they don’t, enjoy Dissecting CASL: Part 1. 3 Common misconceptions about Canadian anti-spam law, and how they can bite you in the ass.
“CASL is ambiguous, nobody fully understands CASL!”
“Rogers Media Inc. has paid $200,000…”
“Porter Airlines Inc. has paid $150,000…”
Sounds like something you want to mess with?
My personal favourite is this piece:
“Canada’s anti-spam legislation protects consumers online against spam, electronic threats and misuse of digital technology while ensuring businesses remain competitive in a global digital marketplace.”
Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation — fightspam.gc.ca
Really? Seriously? How exactly is it “ensuring [that my business] remains competitive”, when I can be prosecuted for sending a simple cold email to my lead?
Anyway, as tempting as it may be, we are not here to exchange horror stories and cry on each other’s shoulders about scary-scary CASL. We are here to figure out how to live with it.
Why CASL freaks the hell out of people so much?
1) general panic:
“CASL is coming! CASL is here! We are all going to be sued! Linda! Linda! Pack your things, we’re leaving!”;
2) anything can find online is overloaded with “if”s, and “may be”s:
“You may be able to send commercial messages, if you can prove one of the people you spoke with within the last 10 years is or was or may be a horse”
How most people see CASL?
The bigger the grey area is, the scarier it gets. Recall a random horror movie. What’s the scariest part? A maniac slitting someone’s throat? A zombie chewing on someones hand? Hell no! A staircase leading to a dark basement. Knowing that the maniac is somewhere in the house but not seeing him.
You don’t really need to understand how vacuum cleaner works to vacuum a carpet. You need to know what button to press to turn it on, and, probably, how to change the dust bags. That’s it. Knowing how vacuum cleaner works will let you fix the vacuum cleaner. Do you really need this kind of knowledge?
You don’t really need to fully understand CASL to be able to take simple precautions.
First things first
First of all, lets recall my pretty table from Dissecting CASL Part 1:
Nice, huh? I made it myself.
What does it tell us?
You are basically sending spam, if you are not including contact information and unsubscribe mechanism. Even if you have implied or express consent.
So… Before you even think about messaging somebody in Canada, let’s spend 5 minutes, and make sure you include all you have to in your message.
One more time: you can’t just email people anymore, you have to identify yourself and tell them how they can stop receiving messages from you.
In every message.
Every. Single. Message.
CASL is fairly straightforward about what you need to include (let me emphasize this one more time - in every electronic message):
Emails
1) You full name
2) Full business name
3) Your mailing address (it doesn’t have to be your home address if that’s where your business is registered, P.O. box will suffice)
4) Alternative contact information — it could be your email and/or a phone number and/or company’s website
5) Unsubscribe button (if you don’t know how to make an unsubscribe button, put in a sentence like “To unsubscribe reply to this email with STOP in the subject line”.
Like this:
To make sure it goes in every email, I suggest putting it in your email signature.
Text messages
See a problem here, right? How can you possibly fit all that in 160 character?
For text messages CASL is being a little more “relaxed” — all your contact information can be just somewhere on your website as long as you include a link to it.
However.
You still have to provide an unsubscribe mechanism, and it in a text message it should be both: a keyword (like “stop” or “unsubscribe”) AND an unsubscribe link.
Like this:
If they click sis.com/austin-powers, they should see:
Both “Text STOP to end” and the link must be in your every message.
Who do you think you are and why should I believe you?
As you already know, you should never trust strangers on the scary internet, so here are some references:
- This one is from Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, you can find this image under “Information to be Included in a Commercial Electronic Message (CEM)” tab
2. This is from Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation, you can find the following information under “What Must be Included in Each CEM?” tab
Clearly identify yourself
Provide a method where the recipient can readily contact you
Provide a working unsubscribe mechanism:
- Functional for 60 days
- No cost
- Same means unless impracticable
- Include either electronic address or link
- Must process without delay
Next time we are going to talk about cold messaging.
Spoiler alert: you can send cold messages even with CASL in effect.
