I’m guessing you have received some emails out of the blue like I have saying that due to Canada’s new anti-spam law, you need to click on a link or whatever and verify that it’s OK for the company who emailed you to continue to do so.  This is probably valid, for now, but I can see virus/malware criminals taking advantage of this to give you a nice link to click on to infect your system.  So beware!

What is the new anti-spam law?  According to the Toronto Star, the new law requires businesses emailing Canadians to have “express consent” to do so, rather than “implied consent” (such as having done business with the person at some point in the distant past).  Express consent means that the recipient must be told what will be sent to them and why and must specifically “opt in” to allow it to happen.  This law goes into effect July 1 2014.

This is causing a lot of worry with Canadian businesses because the penalties are not trivial; $1 million per violation for an individual and $10 million per violation for a business.  There are concerns that one slipup is going to cost a lot of money.  In reality, it’s more likely that warnings will be issued, at least initially.  There is also a three year transition period so if a business already has “implied consent”, they should make efforts to get “express consent”, but don’t have to worry for 3 years.

This seems like a really good idea to me. If other countries had similar laws, it might put quite a dent in spam.