"X" no longer marks the spot: opt-out spam trickery to be banned

OTTAWA-GATINEAU - Spam, spam, spam, and deceptive toggling strategies used to be a wonderfully effective combination for businesses to flood unsuspecting consumers with their ads, but not anymore warns the CRTC. It issued two bulletins today (Guidelines on the interpretation of the Electronic Commerce Protection Regulations) and (Guidelines on the use of toggling to obtaining consent) that detail how the use of deceptive “toggling strategies” will be banned. Toggling strategies describe the deceptive practice of sending consumers a consent form that has a check-mark already ticked that confirms the recipient agrees to receive communications unless they uncheck it. Going forward,...