Porter Airlines has agreed to pay a $150,000 fine for allegedly violating Canada’s anti-spam legislation, the CRTC announced today.
The CRTC’s chief compliance and enforcement officer alleged that Porter failed to comply with various requirements of anti-spam regulations between July 2014 and April 2015. It said that Porter sent commercial e-mails that either did not contain or prominently feature an “unsubscribe” mechanism.
The CRTC also said that Porter allegedly failed to honour unsubscribe requests from recipients within 10 business days, and was unable to provide proof that it had obtained consent for each e-mail address receiving its e-mail.
The federal regulator said that the airline was “cooperative” and immediately took corrective actions to comply with the legislation when made aware of the investigation.
As part of the undertaking, the CRTC said that Porter will also improve its existing compliance program to ensure that its future communications activities are “fully compliant” with anti-spam legislation. Measures are said to include increased training and education for staff, and improved corporate policies and procedures.
In March, online dating site Plentyoffish Media paid $48,000 for violating anti-spam regulations by sending e-mail messages to registered users that did not clearly feature an unsubscribe feature and that was not able to be “readily performed.”
The company agreed to implement a compliance program and has brought its unsubscribe mechanism into compliance.
