Removing subscribers due to Canada's new Anti-Spam Laws (CASL)

  • Unknown's avatar
    mmearadj · Member ·

    Hi there,
    With the new anti-spam laws (CASL: http://fightspam.gc.ca/eic/site/030.nsf/eng/home ) coming into Canada in a few days I have some questions about how to remove subscribers from my WordPress blog. It seems that I cannot remove email subscribers from WP.com blogs myself, is this correct? Can it be done by someone there from the inside? The issue is that with the new laws we are afraid that our school-wide community blog will have to be shut down. The reason being that we need written consent from each person who subscribes to our blog in order to keep emailing them with new posts otherwise we risk getting a hefty fine. So once we begin the new school year in September and subscribers get emailed we could be in some trouble. Sure, we can kindly ask that they unsubscribe the traditional way, but it’s very unlikely that all 210 followers will do so.
    If there’s anything you can do to help us out that would be greatly appreciated. A lot of hard work and off the clock teaching hours went into building this blog for our Toronto community and we would hate to lose it over something that seems so simple to fix. We give our permission to remove all of our followers if that’s possible! Any other tips or tricks would really help a lot.
    Thank you in advance for your help.
    dewsonschool.wordpress.com

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    thistimethisspace · Member ·

    I have some questions about how to remove subscribers from my WordPress blog. It seems that I cannot remove email subscribers from WP.com blogs myself, is this correct?

    We cannot block or delete subscribers from public blogs. Anyone and everyone can access public blogs and that’s indeed what the public designation means. However, please read this about public blogs that become private blogs > Blog Privacy and Subscribers > http://wpcommaven.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/blog-privacy-and-subscribers/ To change blog visibility to Private go to Dashboard > Settings > Reading scroll to Site Visibility and choose option 3
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/privacy-settings/

    The reason being that we need written consent from each person who subscribes to our blog in order to keep emailing them with new posts otherwise we risk getting a hefty fine.

    You do not control your follower’s subscriptions – they do. When you set up a follow blog widget your subscribers choose to subscribe to the blog. They also have frequency settings so they determine how often they receive your posts.

  • kokkieh · Staff ·

    To add to timethief’s reply, we have a similar law in South Africa (though not quite as strict) and it specifically applies to organisations (be it businesses, charities, schools, etc.) who adds your email to a mailing list without you requesting this and actively sends messages of a commercial nature.

    The subscribers to your newsletter requested to receive it. Yes, you do not have proof that they made that request, but they didn’t direct their request to you, but to WordPress.com. You are also not the active party in sending out those emails – no forensic technician will ever find proof that those emails originated on your school’s computer, email account or website, because they didn’t. They originated on the WordPress.com servers.

    I’m not a legal expert, so it might be a good idea to have a lawyer double-check, but I don’t think this law applies to you.

  • Unknown's avatar
    thistimethisspace · Member ·

    I don’t think this law applies to you.

    Agreed.

  • Unknown's avatar
    mmearadj · Member ·

    Thank you both for your quick and knowledgable responses. I don’t really believe it applies too much to us either, but wanted to at least exhaust all options before making any decisions, such as deleting the blog.

    Two last questions, if we were to set our blog to “private” as thistimethisspace suggested as a possible option, we would have to manually enter and ‘invite’ any people who wish to follow, but would they be able to still get email updates once we invite them? And would they be able to manage their subscription status and how often they get emails?
    Lastly, if our blog is in “private” mode can people still use a search engine to find us? Or would they need to type in the exact address to reach the blog?

    Thank you again, I hope we can get this sorted out to be able to continue to use WordPress…darn internet laws!! ;)

  • kokkieh · Staff ·

    If the blog is set to private, only people who’ve been invited as viewers will be able to see it and it will gradually drop from search engine results, so no, people won’t be able to find it via search engines. Even if they have the exact URL, if they’re not invited they will simply get a page which informs them they don’t have access to this blog.

    would they be able to still get email updates once we invite them? And would they be able to manage their subscription status and how often they get emails?

    Yes, they will, but will have to register a wordpress.com username account. Public blogs you can follow without being a wp.com user, but not private ones. http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/privacy-settings/

    Setting your blog to private would help you with the consent part as you can then get written consent before you invite anyone as a viewer, but they may not want to register wp.com accounts, which will be the only way for them to access the blog.

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