sa国际传媒鈥檚 anti-spam legislation, which took effect July 1, is a big solution to a small problem. It creates headaches for charities and innocent individuals within the country, while doing nothing to stem the flow of scurrilous emails from abroad.
The intent of the law is reasonable: To stem the flow of unsolicited electronic commercial messages that clutter the nation鈥檚 inboxes.
What鈥檚 unreasonable is the scope of the law, because it does not differentiate between someone trying to peddle the latest line of lingerie and charities soliciting funds. The heavy penalties 鈥� up to $1 million for an individual and $10 million for a company 鈥� could conceivably fall on a West Shore parent advisory council looking for donations, a neighbour sending out garage-sale notices in Oak Bay or a person announcing a new home-business venture on Facebook.
While that鈥檚 not likely to happen, there鈥檚 no guarantee it won鈥檛. The law is vague and confusing, and makes little provision to exempt charities from its rules. Non-profit organizations, fearful of the heavy and long arm of the law, are scrambling to find out how they will be affected by the new legislation. Charities depend heavily on using their email lists to solicit donations; some of them are concerned about their very survival.
Spam is the scourge of electronic communications. No one is immune to that grimy flood of unwanted, unsolicited messages, nearly all aimed at separating people from their money by one dirty trick or another. Who could object to legislation that seeks to eliminate spam?
A summary of the legislation, as posted on a federal government website, is straightforward: 鈥淭o send a commercial electronic message to an electronic address, you need to have the recipient鈥檚 consent, to identify yourself, to offer an unsubscribe mechanism and to be truthful.鈥�
Many legitimate businesses use electronic messaging, and most already conform to the law鈥檚 requirements. A clerk gets a customer鈥檚 permission to send advertising emails. The emails clearly identify the sender. A customer can unsubscribe at any time to prevent further emails.
To do otherwise is to alienate customers 鈥� the legislation turns into law what is already sound business practices.
But the legislation should have been more specific, writes Derek James, a lawyer for the Calgary-based Canadian Constitution Foundation, in a column for Troy Media.
鈥淓ffectively, what it does is make all non-personal electronic messages illegal, unless you can find an exemption somewhere in the [legislation] or its regulations,鈥� writes James. 鈥淭his is the inverse of what sensible legislation does. Sensible laws target bad behaviour, not render all behaviours bad until proven good. Also, a single email sent to a single recipient can run afoul of the law because there is nothing in [the legislation] saying that spam must have multiple recipients, multiple iterations, or the like.
As the legislation contains no definition of 鈥渃ommercial,鈥� it places a huge burden on charities, he writes.
He says it鈥檚 difficult to believe the government is trying to punish charities.
鈥淟ikely, it鈥檚 just sloppy legislation,鈥� he says.
But here鈥檚 the kicker, as expressed in a statement on the government website: 鈥渟a国际传媒鈥檚 anti-spam legislation allows Canadian enforcement against spammers operating in sa国际传媒.鈥�
The vast majority of spam comes from outside sa国际传媒, and the government is powerless to do anything about it. Scammers in Nigeria, Russia and China are not quivering in their boots at the prospect of being busted by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission.
Spam will continue to flow as it always has, but most people use spam filters to reduce it to a mere irritation.
Unlike the new legislation, which, unless it is altered, has the potential to create more problems than it prevents.
