First up: Happy New Year – I hope you have a wonderful and prosperous 2011. To start the year I’ll be running through the final version of Canada’s new anti-spam law (Bill C-28) in a section by section review with comments and my non-legal opinions.
Brief history:
- May 2004: Industry Canada forms the Federal Anti-Spam Task Force (FAST-F)
- May 2005: FAST-F submits report entitled Stopping Spam: Creating a Stronger, Safer Internet to Industry Canada
- Fast forward – April 2009: Bill C-27 (Electronic Commerce Protection Act) Introduced – largely based on FAST-F Documentation.
- December 2009 – After passing second reading in the Senate, bill is killed after Parliament is Prorogued
- May 2010: Bill C-28 (Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act) is introduced with only minor changes made to C-27
- December 2010, just before the holiday break, the Canadian Senate reviewed and voted on Bill C-28 passing Canada’s Anti-spam Bill into Law (officially signed by the Governor general on December 15th).
Over the next couple of months we will see a regulation guideline and a comment period open to discuss the enforcement of the bill and provided guidance to the businesses and individuals affected by this legislation. Stay tuned for more information on this as details are released.
Next up in this series – Review of the definitions included in Section 1 (1-5) – I’ll be a long post.
There are more laws to stop spam and very little enforcement.