Lexpert US Guides

Corporate 2013

The Lexpert Guides to the Leading US/Canada Cross-Border Corporate and Litigation Lawyers in Canada profiles leading business lawyers and features articles for attorneys and in-house counsel in the US about business law issues in Canada.

Issue link: https://digital.carswellmedia.com/i/138095

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DOING BUSINESS ONLINE IN CANADA THE BURDENS OF BUSINESS ONLINE PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK BY JULIUS MELNITZER CANADA'S NEW ANTI-SPAM LAW AND ITS STRICT PRIVACY RULES ARE A MARKED DEPARTURE FROM THE CORRESPONDING AMERICAN RULES AMONG THE MOST daunting developments for US companies doing business in Canada is the impending proclamation of Canada's new anti-spam and anti-malware law (CASL), more formally known as the Electronic Commerce Protection Act. It has extra-territorial effect, applying whenever a computer located in Canada sends commercial electronic messages anywhere, regardless of the destination. With the expiry of the comment period for the revised draft of the Industry Canada Regulations, publication of Industry Canada's final regulations was all that remained to be done before proclamation became a formality. "We expect CASL to come into effect in late 2013 or early 2014," says Martin Kratz in Bennett Jones LLP's Calgary office. As it turns out, the legislation is a marked departure from the corresponding American statute, the CAN-SPAM Act. "Whereas we sought to make sure that our system of privacy legislation was similar to that in the US, we have deliberately gone the other way with our anti-spam legislation," Kratz says. Like its American counterpart, CASL seeks to prevent consumers from being misled, gives consumers the right to decline receipt of unwanted e-mails and seeks to reduce the costs for businesses that have to manage an influx of spam. But the legislation does so in a manner that likely makes it the world's most comprehensive attempt to restrict unsolicited e-mail. www.lexpert.ca | LEXPERT • June 2013 | 13 B-00-Features.indd 13 13-05-17 9:28 AM

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