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My grandpappy didn’t die so you could continue sending me SPAM

My grandpappy fought long and hard, and gave his life for my right to an uncluttered inbox…

Okay, maybe I don’t have a grandpappy that died in a spam war, but hear me out for a sec.

As a Canadian, you have certain rights related to your email inbox as a commercial communications channel. Those rights exist because lawmakers recognized how disruptive and economically harmful unsolicited commercial email can be when left unchecked.

Starting around the early 2000s, Canadian regulators and lawmakers recognized that if Canadian inboxes were being treated like marketing landfill, it would have negative effects on individuals, as well as on business processes and even our economy. As a result, Canada eventually introduced one of the strongest anti-spam frameworks in the world: CASL — Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation, which came into force in 2014

In this article, we’ll be looking at how CASL works, and how it can help you free up your inbox, stop unwanted emails, and assert your rights as a Canadian when a business anywhere in the world contacts you without your permission. Why should you care about this? Well, because you have a right to not have your time and energy wasted by commercial interests, and—amazingly—the Government of Canada and various associated entities have banded together to secure those rights.

In fact, Canada has one of the strongest anti-spam frameworks in the world, and you’d be a fool to let it go to waste. For now, all you need to know is two of its core principles that will help you protect your inbox: consent, and an easy way to unsubscribe.

CASL’s core principle: consent

At the heart of CASL is a simple idea: organizations generally cannot send commercial electronic messages unless they have consent or a valid exemption applies. A commercial electronic message (CEM) can include marketing emails, promotional newsletters, sales outreach, and certain commercial messages sent through digital platforms.

Consent may take two forms:

Regardless of how consent was obtained, CASL requires every commercial message to include sender identification, valid contact information, and a working unsubscribe mechanism. If those elements are missing, the message may already be non-compliant. Oh, and each message must clearly identify the person or organization sending the message, as well as the entity on whose behalf it is sent.

“Where did you get my email?”

One of the most powerful and underused tools under CASL is simply asking for proof of consent. If you receive a commercial email you didn’t expect, you are well within your rights to ask the sender to explain how they obtained permission to contact you. A legitimate organization should be able to identify:

In other words, businesses sending marketing emails should be able to trace your consent back to a specific, documented moment. And under CASL, the burden of proving consent lies with the sender, not the recipient… and fines for violating this can range from $1 million for individuals to $10 million for businesses! 😯

From my experience, it’s not necessary to bring up the fines… simply asking this question is often enough to make even persistent marketers quietly remove your address from their lists, making it possible to free up your inbox.

PAUSE FOR A MOMENT – Not all emails are legitimate!

The remainder of this article deals with actions you can take regarding legitimate business emails sent without proper consent. It is not intended as guidance for responding to malicious or suspicious spam. Handling potentially harmful emails is beyond the scope of this article.

The short version: flag it as spam and don’t interact with it. Don’t open attachments, don’t click links, and if you’ve already opened the email, do not reply. If the message appears to be a phishing attempt and you are in a workplace environment, consider reporting it to your security or IT team, as these emails can provide useful intelligence about who may be targeting your organization and how those campaigns are operating.

Leverage CASL to declutter your life 💅

CASL gives Canadians practical tools to declutter your email inbox and reduce unsolicited marketing. Here’s how you can make use of this legislation to keep your inbox in tiptop shape:

These simple steps can go a long way toward stopping unwanted emails, and are provided in escalating order… you don’t need to bring out the big guns the first time someone emails you without consent. They honestly might not be aware, in which case you could email them something like this:

Hi [NAME], 
You may be interested to hear that under Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), businesses must obtain consent before sending Commercial Electronic Messages (CEMs,) such as marketing emails, to persons in Canada—regardless of where the business is located. Can you please let me know where you got my email address and consent?  This note is shared for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. 

Thank you kindly, 
[YOUR NAME]

Or if they don’t include an unsubscribe mechanism, maybe something like this:

Hi [NAME],
You might be interested to know that under Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), all Commercial Electronic Messages (CEMs), such as marketing emails, sent to persons in Canada must include a clear and functioning unsubscribe mechanism. I wasn’t able to find one in your message—could you please confirm how recipients are meant to opt out?

This note is shared for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.

Thank you kindly,
[YOUR NAME]

In any case, you should not feel bad for asking for something that companies should have in place when contacting Canadians for business purposes; just be aware that a lot of companies might not know about this—including Canadian companies!

The bottom line

Your inbox is not a public marketing channel. CASL does include some limited exemptions for consent—for example certain business-to-business communications between organizations that already have a relationship, referral messages, or responses to inquiries. But unsolicited marketing messages generally still require consent.

Under CASL, organizations sending commercial emails should be able to clearly answer a simple question: When did I consent to this? If they cannot provide that answer, you have every right to push back — and sometimes that question alone is enough to free up your inbox.

What’s interesting to me is that when we think about leveraging CASL for decluttering our inbox, we get reminded that the more we know, the more control we have over our lives…

Even starting with something as simple as our inbox.

Further Reading