Last week the CRTC, the Canadian regulatory body tasked with CASL enforcement, issued notice of yet another notice of action for violations of the Anti-Spam Law. The Commission imposed a penalty of $15,000 against William Rapanos, alleging that messages sent by Mr. Rapanos in mid-2014 were in violation of multiple provisions of CASL.
This decision is noteworthy because it represents the first time a CASL penalty has been levied against an individual. All previous actions to this point have been issued against companies or corporate entities: names like Compu-Finder, Porter Airlines, PlentyofFish, and Kellogg Canada are among those hit with prior penalties.
The CRTC decision indicates that messages from Mr. Rapanos were sent without the recipient’s consent, did not clearly indicate the sender of the message, made it difficult or impossible to contact the sender, and (in at least one case) included no unsubscribe method.
Another interesting tidbit is that the Spam Reporting Centre received a total of 58 complaints about Rapanos’ messages. These complaints were mostly unique, with 50 different recipients lodging complaints to the SRC.
In discussions about CASL, I’ve heard quite a few people theorize that the CRTC is only looking for large-scale violations and penalties against smaller senders or individuals are unlikely. William Rapanos may have thought the same thing. Or he may have thought the effort and cost involved in CASL compliance weren’t worth it. Then 50 people complained, and now he’s on the hook for $15,000.
I think this decision – and the resulting penalty – proves to Mr. Rapanos and to all of us that compliance is definitely worth it.
Have questions about CASL compliance? Disagree that compliance is paramount for every sender? Leave a comment or email me to keep the discussion going!
