How to Identify Yourself – Canada’s Anti-Spam Laws Simplified and Demystified

Are you who you say you are? Are you promising what you're delivering? Are you using the ol' bait-and-switch to get "consent" under false pretences?

There are multiple reasons why we have a new Anti-Spam law coming into effect – and it's because common courtesy is just not that common.

Heck, just today I saw another example which didn't just toe the line of misleading representation, but repeatedly kicked it. Of course, it's not July 1st, right?

To start, let's review what are the worst things about Spam e-mail communication? Getting e-mails you didn't realize you signed up for? A long and convoluted unsubscribe mechanism that doesn't work? Signing up for one set of e-mails and then getting inundated with "partner" or "affiliate" messaging? Having unwanted programs installed as a condition of receiving content?

In our previous two blogs we've addressed the three basic rules to ensure compliance:

• Obtain consent
• Clearly identify yourself
• Make it easy to unsubscribe

Today we address the second bullet – and the one that will help avoid those "worst things."

But what does it mean to clearly identify yourself? There are really two parts here – identify who you are, but also identify your intent.

Indentifying Yourself

Identify yourself and anyone you represent in your message. Make it clear who this is coming from. Ensure that nothing in the message is misleading or false – and that includes subject line, links, and any other part of the message's text or data. And if you're distributing content on behalf of a client, make sure both of you are clearly defined:

• Business name
• Physical address
• Telephone or e-mail contact

As per the legislation, all contact info must be accurate and valid for a minimum of 60 days.

There are some caveats. If you are distributing a message on behalf of someone AND if it's not practical to include the information in the body of an electronic message, then you can include a link to a webpage. But that webpage must be readily accessible, at no cost, to the recipient of the message. And the link must be prominently displayed. Keep this in mind for any limited-character messaging services, as the link must be included.

Whom do you need to identify? Just "the person sending the message and the person on whose behalf the message and the person on whose behalf the message is sent need necessarily be identified."

So while there may be other people/organizations involved in the distribution, if they're strictly in a facilitation role and have no part in the content or choice of recipients, they don't need to be included. Just note, if a message is sent on behalf of multiple people – affiliates, for example – everyone needs to be identified.

If you're a home-based agency providing messaging services, you don't need to disclose your home address. But you have to provide another valid mailing address at which you can be contacted.

As per Paragraph 9 of the Compliance and Enforcement Information Bulletin CRTC 2012-548 "The Commission considers that, for the purposes of the above-noted paragraphs of the Regulations, 'mailing address' consists of the sender's valid, current street (or civic) address, postal box address, rural route address, or general delivery address. Pursuant to subsection 6(3) of the Act, this address must be valid for a minimum of 60 days after the message has been sent."

Identifying Intent

But what about identifying your intent? This means that the bait-and-switch days of contact gathering are gone.

As we mentioned last week gone are the days when you could ask for contacts and then repurpose it to sign them up for newsletters or e-mail lists.

You have to be honest and upfront about your intent. You can't say, "Fill out our survey and get a chance to win," if that's then followed by a buried demand that the user provides contact information that you would use to send some sort of documentation or messaging. You must be clear and upfront about requesting consent.

If you want to run a contest on-line for the purpose of gathering contacts, make sure you make it very clear what you're doing. Give them multiple choices – "Yes, I want to participate in the survey and draw" and "Yes, I would like to receive more information." But, no, you shouldn't make the latter a condition of the former.

Basically, don't be sleazy.

The Competition Bureau has a great list of what constitutes "false or misleading representations," but again I return to the idea of just use common sense.

If it feels deceptive or dirty, don't do it. If you are trying to come up with a way to 'trick' people into getting your information, visit your URL, or sign up for future contact, then you're probably doing it the wrong way. If you're trying to make the fine print so fine that you need an electron microscope to read it, you're doing it the wrong way. And if you're embedding "consent" in a 50-page "terms and conditions" in the hopes that no one reads it, then you're doing it the wrong way.

We've said it many times before: focus on delivering the right message to the right person in the way that best suits them. There's no magic; there's no alchemy – it's just quality content delivered honestly. Sure, you may not get 50,000 impressions, but the people you do get will be far more valuable and more likely to act.

And that's worth more to your business.

Comments, as always, are open.