The First Newsletter Under CASL

The newsletter that was due this week

The July newsletter was written last week and scheduled for this morning. Then the owner remembered that Canada's anti-spam law came into force yesterday, on Canada Day, and paused it.

The newsletter itself barely needs to change. What has changed is that every address on the list now needs a basis the business can name.

A first send under the law is the right moment to settle that once, carefully, and to start the habits that keep it settled.

A label for every contact

Export the list and give each address one label for its basis, with the date that goes with it:

• Signed up, through a form or sheet whose wording you still have.
• Bought, with the date of the last purchase or the contract's end.
• Asked, with the date of the enquiry or quote request.
• Handed over, such as a business card, where your messages relate to their work.
• Already receiving, a relationship from before July 1 that included your commercial email.
• Unknown, for everything else.

Most mailing services can hold these as extra fields beside each address; for a small list, a spreadsheet kept with it will do.

What the labels decide

Signed-up contacts and those already receiving your email can have this newsletter. So can recent customers and recent enquiries, inside their time limits.

Business card contacts can receive messages that relate to their work, which suits a trade newsletter better than a consumer one. Read the issue with that in mind.

The unknown group does not receive it. Since yesterday, an email requesting their consent would itself need consent, so they are asked in person, by phone or with their next order instead.

Dates that run out

Consent implied by a purchase ends two years after it, and consent implied by an enquiry ends six months after it. Each new order or question starts the period again.

Relationships that already existed on July 1 and included your commercial email are treated more generously for three years. During that time their consent does not lapse with the dates.

Contacts gained from today onward have no such cushion. Add an end date beside each implied consent, and before it passes, invite the person to sign up properly.

A worked example

A business phone system installer with a small office and three technicians sets up and services office phone systems for accountants, law offices and shops in the Comox Valley.

Its quarterly newsletter covers service reminders, new handsets and a seasonal offer, and went to customers, quote requests, business fair contacts and a few hundred addresses with no record.

The office manager labelled each address. Service contracts gave a clear basis, and quote requesters who had received earlier issues fell under the transition. Business fair contacts stayed, since phone systems relate to their work.

The addresses with no record went into a separate group and were left out of the July issue. Staff will ask those people about the newsletter when they next call.

The issue carries the company name, street address, phone number and an unsubscribe link, and invites readers to confirm they want future issues. Each yes replaces a basis that would one day run out.

What every message now carries

Each commercial message needs the business name, an address where mail arrives, a phone number or website as well, and a means of opting out. In a newsletter these usually sit in the template's footer.

Read the footer as a stranger would. The address should receive mail, the phone should be answered, and the name should be the one readers know you by.

If someone else sends the newsletter for you, the message has to say so and identify both. Those details must keep working for 60 days after the send.

One unsubscribe, every list

An unsubscribe must take effect within ten business days, and it reaches beyond the newsletter to every offer the business emails that person.

That matters when addresses live in several places: the mailing service, the customer database, a salesperson's own contacts. Keep one list of people who have opted out, and check every import against it.

Test the link before sending: click it from a test copy, confirm the address leaves the list, and check that no login or password stands in the way.

The record of how each address arrived

If anyone ever questions a message, the business has to show the consent. The record is what turns a reasonable list into one you can defend.

Save the wording of every sign-up form with the date it went live, keep paper sign-up sheets, and file consent requests with their replies.

Then keep a copy of each send's list as it stood that day, labels and dates included. None of this is legal advice for a particular newsletter; it describes the rules in general terms.

Asking readers to confirm

The first issue under the law is a good place to ask readers with implied consent to confirm they want to keep receiving it. Because their consent already exists, the request is allowed.

Make the request plain: the business making it, what readers will receive and how often, and that they may change their mind at any time. A confirm button that records the date does the rest.

There is no need to remove people who ignore it. Their implied consent stands until it ends, and the confirmations replace it one reader at a time.

The counter-case

A list built entirely from a sign-up form whose wording was kept, with dates, already has what the law asks for, leaving only the footer and the unsubscribe to check.

A newsletter that sells nothing, such as a members' notice about meeting dates, may not be commercial at all.

Most business newsletters do carry an offer somewhere, though, and most lists are older than their records. For those, the labelling is the work, and it is done once.

Before pressing send

1. Label every address with its basis and date.
2. Leave out the addresses with no basis.
3. Add end dates to implied consent from now on.
4. Read the footer as a stranger would.
5. Test the unsubscribe from a real copy.
6. Invite readers to confirm they want the newsletter.
7. Save the list as it stood on the day of sending.

Step seven is the habit that pays later. A list changes every week, and only a copy saved on the day shows who received this issue and why.

What the law asks of every commercial email, and what its transition allows, is laid out in CASL takes effect tomorrow.

Frequently asked questions

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