Yesterday Canadians celebrated three very special events:
1. Our nation’s birthday
2. The right to use fireworks while publicly intoxicated
3. The end of spam as we know it.
Yes, Canada, judgement day has arrived for those pesky spammers, and the heavy hand of the law isn’t playing around.
On Monday, the federal government’s anti-spam law came into effect, banning unsolicited and unwelcome emails from our inboxes. You probably have been receiving emails from various businesses in the last few months begging you to consent to their ‘newsletter’. That’s because after yesterday, if they don’t get your consent but still send you messages, their business could risk being fined up to $10 million! That’s right; take that in. $10 million.
$10,000,000 is a lot to pay for Spam
Hormel Foods
That’s a high price to pay for advertising hot new deals on moccasins, or hypothetically, Conservative party emails advertising the benefits of the new anti-spam bill.
While the law has some of the harshest spam fines in the world, some say that this bill does very little for the average Canadian interneteur. Anyone who uses a decent email service (including Gmail and Outlook) have built-in anti-spam filters which already flag much of the garbage that flies about the tubes. Plus, anyone who unsubscribes from mailing lists they don’t want (there’s typically a link at the bottom), and regularly flags the stuff they don’t want as spam, should see almost nothing unwanted in their regular inbox on a daily basis.
Except for things sent by foreigners, specifically from the United States. Another issues is that it only covers businesses sending mail with commercial intent, so those would-be Nigerian princes aren’t breaking any more laws than they were before.
Probably not, though.
DIYLOL
So, when you get to checking your email later today, remember to mark spam as spam, but to stay subscribed to the stuff you like. After all, the internet is easy to customize, so make your experience yours.