How will Canada’s anti-spam law impact your startup?
Category: Business Advice
Tags: anti-spam legislation, canada's law, startup
The CASL, or Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation, was introduced in 2014. This was designed to protect Canadians from businesses that might be abusive in terms of their marketing plans. This particularly entails email marketing.
This law is important for all businesses in Canada, particularly startups, to watch for. You must make sure your business complies with the ruling.
Consent Is Important
A key consideration for CASL is that it places an emphasis on consent. That is, you cannot send emails to people unless you have consent from those people to get them out.
You can ask people to voluntarily send their email addresses to you. You can add a simple opt-in prompt on your website. The key is to ensure that you only send messages to those who sent those addresses to you as they are the people who want message from you.
Allow People To Opt Out
You must also ensure that your customers have the right to opt out of messages that you send them. In particular, they should have the right to choose to not take in any more messages from you. A prompt at the bottom of your emails should allow people to opt out of those messages as they see fit.
This will impact your startup as it can influence whether or not people can get things from you in some way. You must allow some leeway in terms of how people are going to take in messages from you.
Transparency Is a Must
The CASL also requires you to be transparent in your email messages. You must list your business’ name, its contact info and physical address in each message. This is to show that your business is legitimate and that people can contact you in the event that you are liable for anything bad that could happen to your business. This is done to protect the consumer and to keep you visible.
The CASL is a ruling that you must follow if you want your startup to run well. The key for running an email campaign is to see that you are marketing yourself in a responsible way. You cannot just go out and market yourself without any control. You have to allow people to determine if they want to be marketed to. This gives the customers freedom while ensuring that you will keep your hands off of them. This is also to hold your startup accountable.
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