On November 20, 2015, chief compliance and enforcement officer, Manon Bombardier, advised that Rogers Media Inc. entered into a voluntary undertaking which includes a monetary payment of $200,000. In addition, Rogers undertook “to comply with, and ensure any third party authorized to send a commercial electronic message on its behalf complies with, the Act and Regulations (CRTC).”
The CRTC notice indicates that,
From 3 July 2014 to 15 July 2015, Rogers Media Inc. sent certain commercial electronic messages (CEMs) to email addresses that either contained an unsubscribe mechanism that did not enable the person to indicate their wish to no longer receive messages or that was not able to be “readily performed”.
From 11 July 2014 to 15 July 2015, Rogers Media Inc. did not give effect to certain unsubscribe requests within 10 business days. Also, for a limited time period in that same timeframe, Rogers Media Inc. sent certain CEMs for which the unsubscribe mechanism did not contain an electronic address that was valid for a minimum of 60 days after the message was sent.
It is noteworthy that the period of time indicated starts 2 days after CASL came into force (CASL came into force on July 1, 2014) following the trend we have been seeing with the various CASL enforcement cases to date (for more information, visit my previous blog). For example, on June 29, 2015, the CRTC announced that Porter Airlines agreed to pay a $150,000 and to take other measures to become CASL compliant. This was in response to allegations that it failed to comply with various CASL requirements, including that it failed to have a proper unsubscribe mechanism.
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