Does CASL mean that I can't send cold emails?

September 17, 2018 6:35 PM

If I send emails to potential clients that I haven't made contact with before to let them know about my services, would that violate CASL? My potential clients are people who are accountants and I'd only be contacting those who had their information available on their website. Is this something that would that be allowed under "implied consent, conspicuous publication", assuming that what I'd be contacting them about is relevant to their business?
posted by Proginoskes to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Best answer: I am by no means an expert on this subject, but as far as I can determine, the answer is: you can do this, but you have to be careful about it

This link describes a situation in which a company was fined several hundred thousand dollars, despite claiming that their email campaign fell under the conspicuous publication rule, because:

Blackstone provided no supporting information to the Commission with respect to where or how it discovered any of the recipient addresses in question, when it obtained them, whether their publication was conspicuous, whether they were accompanied by a statement indicating that the person does not want to receive unsolicited commercial electronic messages, or how the company determined that the messages it was sending were relevant to the roles or functions of the intended recipients.

So if anybody complains, the burden is on you to have all of that documentation available for every single email address.
posted by teraflop at 11:43 PM on September 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

Publicly available addresses did not opt into your mailings. Source: I literally work in email compliance and shut down accounts for not having permission every single day
posted by masquesoporfavor at 7:17 AM on September 18, 2018

Response by poster: masquesoporfavor: I found on this page that says:

"Can I send CEMs to an email address I find online?

You can only rely on this conspicuous publication—or in other words, when someone posts or publishes their email address—when:

There is no statement in connection with the address that the person does not want to receive CEMs at that address; and
The content of your CEM is relevant to the recipient's business, role, functions, or duties in a business or official capacity."

Doesn't that mean that it's ok to send the email? Or am I missing something? It sounds like the person doesn't need to explicitly opt in?
posted by Proginoskes at 10:51 AM on September 18, 2018