Individual Charged With $75,000 Penalty Under Canada’s Anti Spam Law (CASL)

On March 29, 2021 the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) issued a penalty of $75,000 under Canada’s Anti Spam Law (CASL) against an individual, Scott William Brewer, for what the CRTC described as a “series of high-volume spam campaigns”.

The CRTC alleged violations of S 6(1)(a), the requirement of consent, of CASL.^[1]

The Notice of Violation alleged that Mr. Brewer committed three violations between 2015 and 21018 sending 671,342 commercial electronic messages without the consent of the recipients.

In its investigation the CRTC located no evidence that Mr. Brewer had obtained any consent from any of the recipients.

The CRTC characterized the email campaigns around the themes of web marketing and affiliate marketing.

On affiliate marketing the CRTC alleged that Mr. Brewer sent 597.569 commercial electronic messages from one email address over six days. The messages “included an embedded link to casinoonlinesoftware[.]com; a blog-style website registered by Scott Brewer, promoting four online casinos that would compensate Brewer through their affiliate programs for new customers referred through casinoonlinesoftware[.]com.”

On web marketing the CRTC alleged that Mr. Brewer sent 73,773 commercial electronic messages from two email addresses over about four months. These messages promoted Mr. Brewer’s “services for online marketing and webpage development”.

The CRTC reported that some 671,342 records in the Spam Reporting Centre related to Mr. Brewer’s activities. The CRTC disclosed that their investigation involved sources inside and outside of Canada as well as tracking the domains from which the messages were send and linking them to Mr. Brewer.

Mr. Brewer has a right to respond to the Notice of Violation both on the allegations and on the amount of the penalty assessed ($75,000) and also has the option to seek to negotiate a Undertaking under CASL.

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^[1] S. 6(1)(a) of CASL states that it is prohibited to send or cause or permit to be sent to an electronic address a commercial electronic message (CEM) unless the person to whom the message is sent has consented to receiving it, whether the consent is express or implied.