GATINEAU – Complaints to the government’s Spam Reporting Centre (SRC) between Oct. 1, 2021 and March 31, 2022 totalled over 167,939 or around 6,459 per week, according to the CRTC’s latest Enforcing Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) report.
Of the total complaints, around 4,069 were submitted through the SRC’s online form while the rest were submitted by email.
The reasons for complaints submitted through the SRC’s online form include lack of consent (94%), identification of sender (39%), deceptive marketing practices (33%), other (20%) and software and malware (3%), the report says. (Please see chart above.)
The sources of spam reported through the online form include email (65%), text message (23%), instant message (2%) and unspecified (10%).
The report further indicates the per-month submissions made through the SRC’s online form between October 2021 and March 2022 were at their highest in November. (Please see chart below.)
In the six months, “about 65% of the messages reported to the SRC were related to affiliate marketing or legitimate businesses selling or promoting the sale of a good or service,” the report says.
The top five categories of reported affiliate marketing messages were dating; food, drug and health; online shopping; leisure and gambling; and technology, while the top five categories of commercial messages reported were news and media; online shopping; technology; financial; and business to business.
Of the enforcement measures used between October 2021 and March 2022, there was one undertaking, 230 notices to produce and 21 preservation demands issued.
The CRTC’s report also notes that since 2014, “enforcement efforts have resulted in more than $1.9 million payable. Of this amount, approximately $1.1 million is from administrative monetary penalties and $868,000 from negotiated undertakings.”
For the complete report, please click here.
Charts borrowed from the CRTC report.
