CRTC's Troubling Guidelines On CASL Accessorial Liability

If you thought CASL wasn't draconian enough, think again. The CRTC's interpretation of CASL in the new Guidelines on the Commission's approach to section 9 of Canada's anti-spam legislation (CASL) (Compliance and Enforcement Information Bulletin CRTC 2018-415) has tightened the noose on Canada's already speech impairing anti-spam law. Under the Guidelines, intermediaries of all stripes including telecom providers, ISPs, hosting companies, payment processors, advertising brokers, electronic marketers, software and application developers and distributors can be liable for CASL violations of their users – whether these intermediaries even intend or know that their users are using their products or services to violate CASL.