Porter fined $150K under anti-spam law

Porter Airlines has been fined $150,000 by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, after the CRTC ruled that the carrier had violated Canada’s anti-spam legislation with its commercial email activity.

In a statement, the CRTC alleged that between July 2014 and April 2015, Porter had sent commercial emails which either did not include an unsubscribe mechanism or did not clearly indicate the option, while some emails did not include complete contact information as required under the law. The CRTC also alleged that Porter did not honour some recipients’ requests to be removed from the email list within 10 days and that for certain emails sent between July 2014 and February 2015, the carrier could not provide proof that it had obtained consent from those recipients.

In addition to the fine, Porter has also agreed to improve its existing compliance program, the CRTC said, which will include providing “increased training and education for staff and improved corporate policies and procedures” to ensure compliance with the legislation.

According to Porter spokesperson Brad Cicero, the fine is related to a “very small percentage” of email recipients, explaining that the violations resulted from “isolated errors related to the transition to a new email platform.”

“We cooperated as soon as the situation was brought to our attention,” Cicero told PAX. “Corrective measures were taken and the issues haven’t happened since."

Porter is the third company to be fined under the legislation since it took effect July 1, 2014; the CRTC has also levied fines against dating website PlentyOfFish and corporate training company Compu-Finder.