How to Report SPAM in Canada – Canada’s anti-spam legislation (CASL)

The Good News for Canadian Residents

To follow suit on my recent post entitled: SPAM from Ricky Alexis, Rick Barry, Erica Semente and Lex Jones, the Canadian Government has since passed the Canada’s anti-spam legislation (CASL) which went into effect July 1st, 2014 giving us all one more recourse against these SPAMmers.

First off, here are a few resources on the subject:

Canada’s Law on Spam and Other Electronic Threats – Home – Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation
Spam Reporting Centre
Submit Information to the Spam Reporting Centre

As I discovered through my own recent woes with SPAM and trying to report every single SPAM e-mail to the same Hosts and Registrars was that they were:

  • slow to respond, if they did at all
  • simply reactive and definitely not proactive (even after reporting the same person 40-50 time they do not freeze the account, simply freeze the offending domains, so the SPAMmer just keeps on SPAMming using other domains)

Now, if you check out the 3 links provided above, especially the 3rd one, you will see that Canadians now have 2 means to report SPAM e-mails: either by using the online form or by simply forwarding the SPAM e-mail to spam@fightspam.gc.ca

I find it much easier to simply forward the e-mail.  When forwarding the SPAM e-mail, include:

  • the e-mail header (in outlook, open the e-mail and click on Options and then you should see an Internet headers textbox.  Simply copy/paste the content into your e-mail you are sending to spam@fightspam.gc.ca)
  • the e-mail body (content of the message) itself
  • I also start off with a paragraph explaining why I consider the e-mail to be SPAM (you can also consult their online form for some of the reasons they commonly use)

Below is SPAM received Date/Time from Domain/E-mail Address of Sender. I have no affiliation with the sender, never inquired, never requested information, never subscribed or registered, nor have I ever given them any form of consent to receive any form of communications from them.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me for more information.

  • Be sure to include your name should they ever which to contact you (they will already have your e-mail address from the e-mail you are sending.

Remember, be polite (they are not the ones sending the SPAM, they are trying to help you stop the SPAMmers), be concise and give them all the information you can to simplify their job.

 

The Bad News

You will not be contacted unless one of the CASL enforcement agencies (the CRTC, the Competition Bureau and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada) requires additional information about the nature or details of your submission.

So you will have no way of knowing if they received your e-mail, since no confirmation is ever sent out and you will have no way of knowing what, if anything is being done about your complaint!  I must say that in 2014, this is moronic!  They could easily have implemented an automated confirmation e-mail to let you know your e-mail was received and they could easily have a summary webpage listing domains and complaint statuses.

The CASL enforcement agencies will not investigate all submissions, but the information you provide is an essential component of the intelligence gathered by the Spam Reporting Centre and may enable these agencies to target their enforcement activities.

Another element that I do not understand.  What is the criteria for investigating or not?  Why would I take the time to send information if you won’t actually do anything about it?  How will I know if I am wasting my time if you don’t notify me that my submissions are not valid?

 

Conclusions About the Canada’s anti-spam legislation (CASL)

I know the legislation has scared a lot of small businesses regarding needing consent to send out e-mails… but has it truly done anything to scare true SPAMmers?!  I seriously doubt it.

Also, most of the SPAM I receive seems to originate outside of Canada, what authority does Canada have on foreign businesses!?

Furthermore, since there is no transparency on behalf of CASL, no follow-up, no communications, … I am a little concerned.  On top of the fact that they are being selective on which complains they treat.

That all said, I am however trying it out for the time being in the hopes of seeing some positive results.  It can’t hurt and it just take 30 seconds to forward the e-mail with the header.

Hopefully, if everyone starts forwarding all the SPAM we receive, the government will see just how bad things are and maybe, just maybe they can do something about it.  Then again, the Internet is a Wild Wild West and since when is Canada the Sheriff?

Time will tell.

 

Further Reading(s)

You may wish to read the CBC’s article on the subject: Canada’s new anti-spam law: Can it really clean up your inbox?