In Canada, the law governing the sending of text messages is known as “Canada’s Anti Spam Legislation” or CASL (pronounced “castle”). While CASL is more flexible than US law, the penalties can be severe for those who fail to send CASL-compliant text messages. Read this article to find out to send CASL-compliant text messages to your contacts or customers.
Got questions about HIPAA compliance and sending SMS / text messages to your patients? I’m not surprised. I probably don’t need to tell you that a growing number of your patients and clients have don’t have landlines, use cell phones extensively, and communicate largely by text message.
CASL is fundamentally a law about consent. Consent in this case refers to the permission that must be granted by your clients in order for you to send them marketing messages. CASL allows for two types of consent: Express Consent and Implied Consent.
Just because you have the legal right to message your clients and customers with SMS doesn’t mean they are going to appreciate it. In fact, one of the easiest ways to damage your brand, alienate your clients and generally piss people off is to start sending them text messages “out of the blue.”
CASL is, according to some experts, the most restrictive anti-spam legislation in the world. It is often ambiguous, and seems to be more focused on curtailing the efforts of genuine, well-meaning business owners than the real contributors to spam, who aren’t residents of Canada at all.
No business should consider implementing an mobile marketing plan without first obtaining a working knowledge of the SMS marketing laws that govern the advertising on this mobile channel. Local Text Marketers operates in both Canada and the U.S., so we’ll talk primarily about the laws in these two countries…
If you are looking for a SMS solution for your Canadian business, you need to be aware that Canada’s Anti-Spam legislation applies to text / SMS messages and you must insure that the provider you choose understands the rules and the laws as they apply.