So long, spam

It’s hard to imagine a more eagerly awaited law than Canada’s anti- spam legislation, which is set to go into effect July 1. The law, which is aimed at preventing phishing scams, identity theft and the tons of nuisance emails that flood, unwanted, into people’s inboxes, stipulates that businesses can’t send emails, such as newsletters or promotional material, or text messages, unless they first get the recipient’s permission.

The emails must also have an unsubscribe option, and a company’s refusal to honour the recipient’s request to unsubscribe is a breach of the legislation.

The law poses problems for some small businesses because collecting all these consents comes with the requirement of keeping them in a database so that they can prove permission was received.

It seems to be a matter not only of lacking the necessary record- maintenance software, but in many cases, of being unaware that the new law is coming into effect. And the clients must be asked for their consent before July 1 — just three weeks from now.

Small business needs to get on board — obtaining the software is far less onerous financially than paying a hefty fine.

As for the rest of us — recipients of all those emails — the law puts the power back in our own hands. Things have reached such a point that for many people, there are more unwanted messages in their inboxes than there are welcome ones.

A personal computer is for an individual’s convenience, not for that of a commercial enterprise targeting people for advertising campaigns. The anti- spam law is going to be a very welcome relief.