IC TRAVEL AGENT June 2014 | Page 15

Who Pays The Bill? Oh dear! Well you won’t know how this actually plays out until someone somewhere decides to challenge the sending of emails to their email address after they have opted-out and or unsubscribed from your list. It could be that their name was not removed from your list and so they received another dozen or more emails. Then follow up emails, too. Initially the client remained calm and deleted. Now they are angry, upset and they’ve found out about CASL and CANSPAM where they can take their complaint. Here’s one slide from a presentation that compares the American CAN-SPAM program with Canada’s CASL. The CAN-SPAM program puts the onus on your client or prospect to opt-out if they do not wish to receive your emails any longer. Failure to remove them from the list causes repercussions and small fines. The Canadian CASL program is very aggressive compared to the CAN-SPAM program and especially regarding who is liable for that $1m to $10m fine. And guess who that would be? If you are the agency owner manager, host agency owner manager, on the corporate team and or have travel counsellors working for you, you’d best make sure that everyone for whom you rely on to do an impeccable job, is well trained on how to satisfy CASL compliance. That would mean they understand the rules and regulations and agree to sign off that they will not endanger the company by being frivolous in sending emails to just anyone. If an existing client or prospect complains about a member of staff’s emails, it could well be YOU challenging the fine in court. The image above was captured from a presentation on SlideShare.net and it is worthwhile clicking through the 40-page comparison betw