Rogers Media Inc. agrees to pay $200,000 for allegedly violating Canada’s anti-spam law

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced on Friday that Rogers Media Inc. has paid $200,000 in relation to alleged violations of Canada’s anti-spam legislation (CASL).

Following an investigation launched by the CRTC’s chief compliance and enforcement officer, Manon Bombardier, it is alleged that Rogers Media failed to comply with various requirements of the law between July 2014 and July 2015, Canada’s Department of National Defence (DND) said in a statement. During this period, the company allegedly sent commercial emails containing an unsubscribe mechanism that did not function properly or which could not be readily performed by the recipient.

In addition, in some instances, the electronic address used to unsubscribe was allegedly not valid for the required minimum of 60 days following the sent message, the DND said. Rogers Media also allegedly failed to honour, within 10 business days, requests from some recipients to unsubscribe from receiving future commercial emails.

As part of the undertaking, Rogers Media will improve its existing compliance program to ensure that its activities are fully compliant with CASL. “Rogers Media cooperated fully with the CRTC during its investigation,” the DND added. “During the CRTC’s investigation, Rogers Media took steps to better comply with the legislation.”

Bombardier said that “companies must respect the choices of Canadians who do not wish to receive commercial emails, and must make it easy for them to unsubscribe from their mailing lists.” He added that the CRTC is “satisfied that Rogers Media Inc. made the necessary changes to comply with Canada’s anti-spam law. Today’s announcement is a direct result of the information provided by Canadians and we continue to encourage them to report suspected violations to the Spam Reporting Centre.”

Since CASL came into force on July 1, 2014, enforcement efforts have resulted in payments of close to $400,000 further to undertakings and issued monetary penalties totalling $1.1 million.