Canada’s Enforcement Agency Issued the Largest Penalty Under the CASL

Canada’s CASL enforcement agency, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), announced last month that they have issued the largest ever penalty under the CASL for sending messages to Canadian residents without prior consent. The CRTC staff said they launched an investigation in January of 2019 into a series of high-volume spam campaigns and potential violations of paragraph 6(1)(a) of CASL. The spam campaigns focused on affiliate and web marketing for online casinos that compensate Mr. Brewer through their affiliate programs for new customers. After the investigation, the Chief Compliance & Enforcement Officer issued a Notice of Violation (NOV), that includes an administrative monetary penalty of $75,000, to Scott William Brewer for sending commercial electronic messages without the prior consent of the recipients. The CRTC said, “Mr. Brewer sent more than 670,000 emails, promoting affiliate marketing and web marketing businesses. A large number of these emails were sent using a “hailstorm” technique. In this approach, a high number of emails are sent very quickly in order to evade anti-spam detection.”