Canada's new federal anti-spam law comes into force in a
significant way on July 1, 2014.
The prohibition against spam is a very broad one, and the key
focus immediately turns to the exceptions where either the law does
not apply to the message, or, consent is not required to send the
message.
Section 6 of the law contains the basic prohibition against
sending "commercial electronic messages" without firstly,
consent, and secondly, compliance with certain form and content
requirements (including the unsubscribe mechanism).
Commercial electronic messages are defined broadly to capture
emails or other electronic messages that have as one of their
purposes "encouraging participation in a commercial
activity", and "commercial activity" is also broadly
defined to include any act or conduct of a commercial nature.
