DELIVTERMS: CASL

It seems like a good day to decode another deliverability acronym. It's DELIVTERMS! The annoyingly random ongoing feature from Spam Resource, where we explain all those confusing deliverability terms.

Today we're talking about CASL, which stands for "Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation." If you're American, think of it as the Canadian version of CAN-SPAM, the US federal anti-spam law, but with some important differences. I know a fair amount about CAN-SPAM (disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer) but I know less about CASL. I wanted to learn more, so I asked for guidance from Canadian Deliverability expert Matthew Vernhout (who is currently VP, Deliverability North America for Netcore Cloud). Here are a few good links that he kindly shared with me.

• The Canadian government has an official CASL website here: Fightspam.gc.ca
• Matthew's "Email Karma" blog published a CASL Countdown series back in 2014, but the information there still seems to be very relevant.
• That's just part of a whole CASL section that one can find on the Email Karma website.
• Privacy Agency NewPort Thomson has published a CASL ebook that has lots of useful information for marketers.
• The Canadian Marketing Association regularly posts CASL-related info, and offers up training sessions and materials.
• The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission publishes reports on CASL compliance actions here as part of their broader CASL-focused website.
• This CASL forum on Reddit tracks enforcement actions.

And don't forget to follow Matt Vernhout's blog, Email Karma. Thanks, Matt, for sharing all of this great info!

(Full disclosure: Most of this is recycled from a 2022 blog post, but I believe this content to be accurate as of 2024.)

Don't forget to browse the DELIVTERMS section here on Spam Resource, chock full of explanations of deliverability and email marketing terminology.