Canada Day 2014
It’s Canada Day 2014 and most Canadians have probably noticed their email inboxes filling up with requests to confirm their subscriptions to several mailing lists.
This is of course because the new anti-spam legislation comes in effect today, restricting the sending of unsolicited emails to Canadians.
I’ve personally taken advantage of several offers to confirm my subscriptions in exchange for contest entries. But I have also used the opportunity to unsubscribe to the mailings lists I no longer read regularly and recommend that you do so as well, as soon as possible.
You should note that this legislation is not limited to commercial email but extends to “malware, spyware, address harvesting, and false or misleading representations involving the use of any means of telecommunications, short message services (SMS), social networking, websites, URLs and other locators, applications, blogs, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and any other current or future Internet and wireless telecommunication threats prohibited by Canada’s anti-spam legislation.”
You can also help stop some of this activity by securing your Wi-fi with a password and by updating your antivirus & firewall software regularly.
Government Spam Reporting Center Almost Here
The government’s spam reporting center is on it’s way, according to Postmedia News.
Unsolicited commercial emails, faxes and calls have been illegal in Canada since 2010 but enforcement has yet to kick in. This center will handle complaints in regards to this activity.
Canadian Gov. Publishes Anti-Spam Site
A new federal government site offering tips on how to avoid unsolicited commercial email, a.k.a spam, can be found at fightspam.gc.ca.
An Interesting Link On The Anti-Spam Law
A short article on the new Canadian anti-spam law can be found here.
Canadian Anti-Spam Bill Comes Into Force
Bill C-28 came into force yesterday.
As a member of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email for over a decade and participating member of the Task Force On Spam, I had waited for years for anti-spam legislation to pass in Canada. But of course the proposed bills appeared to have major issues until now.
Hopefully the spammers will leave Canada in response to this legislation, like they did in Australia, the U.K and USA when those countries passed anti-spamming legislation. And yes, this legislation covers those costly text spams, unless these are non-commercial solicitations (charities/political parties).
Additional information on this new legislation can be found at the Industry Canada web site.
There is NO Official Limewire Replacement !
I just read a CAUCE notice that someone is claiming they are an “official” replacement for Limewire in unsolicited commercial emails.
Limewire has issued a statement warning their users that this spam is in no way associated to them, as they have been ordered to cease their operations in October 2010 :
“We have very recently become aware of unauthorized applications on the internet purporting to use the LimeWire name. We demand that all persons using the LimeWire software, name, or trademark in order to upload or download copyrighted works in any manner cease and desist from doing so.”