Canadian laws against spamming
 

Do any exist?

I dont mean mail spamming, but things like chatroom spamming or board spamming, and what-have-you

I know AOL is trying very hard to crack down on spammers (i think they took some to court), but can these guys touch canadians?

discuss

Did you ever notice the AOL is in Virginia. So they they can lobby the government to get what ever laws that they want. If they think that they can get the US to pust the Canadians on some laws they will


You a are never safe from the long arm of AOL ( AO HELL )

Good question

There are no anti-spam laws in Canada per se.

AOL is still suing Canadian spammers though in US court.

There are computer intrusion laws in Canada and I would suspect that trojan proxy mailing would be considered illegal, but thats just my opinion.

Not sure about laws against it, but I do know that the bandwidth providers don't seem to mind it as much

stay away from aol. they are handing out lawsuits like candy.

True.

Out of curiosity, what happens in a case like this. Where an American company sues a Canadian in US Court. Does the Canadian have to fly the the US state for every court hearing?

good question

could us canadians just say "we didnt break any laws in our country, so go fuck yourself"?

its like.. i dont know.. the chinese govt suing americans for putting porn on the net

im guessing they cant do shit

If it turns into a criminal matter in another country, then yes - they can do something. People have been extradited before; just makes you wonder if spammers will have that done to them.

someone posted on here about a friend getting served in some country in Asia
( AOL ) don't know what came of it.

Thing is if they have money = power = they will get you, or it could cost you a lot of money fighting them.

No, you can hire a US attorney to defend it. Under US law you don't ever have to testify at your own trial, civil or criminal.

Ignoring it is a mistake as they can petition Canadian court to apply the judgement in Canada.

A Canadian spammer can not be extradited to the US IMO, there would have to be a comparable law in Canada for the extradition portion of the MLAT to go into effect.

there is no money in it

Yes you can hire a lawyer in the state to do all the work, you shouldn't have to appear in court. But if the case is civil, don't they have to take the case to Canada courts?

Let's say in the case of a Canadian selling someone an as is apple on eBay to a US customer (lets say in California). The US customer finds the apple sour and the Canadian seller will not refund them. They paid by money order so cannot do a chargeback or even worse press a button on PayPal to automatically fuck over the seller. They want to take the Canadian seller to court and do all the filings in California court and send out the notices to the seller in Canada for a court date in the state of California. What happens in this case. Is the seller forced to get a lawyer in California to go to court to fight the case or to make the court case in Canada?

You can get charged with theft for using their computer systems, there are a ton of things they could charge you with if you piss someone off enough.

If the case is big enough, and if they suspect that you will ignore the US suit, the plaintiff will launch a parallel action in Canada, but that is not a requirement.

I speak from experience as this happened to me last year. In my case the company, which is one of the largest in the US, flew a team of lawyers up to Canada and I ended up settling before any of it went to court. Cost alot of money though, but the suits were asking for over $100 million in damages.

So are they required to fly over? Or can they make you have to get a lawyer in the USA to go to court and fight for your right for them to have to fly over or to just handle the case?

this still makes no sense

how can another country sue you if you broke one of their laws

imagine china suing americans because (since porn is illegal there) theyre responsible for most of the online smut thats around

its proposterous

With the USA it's different. They have the power to do almost anything they want and all internet lines in someway pass through the US

They don't have to fly over and normally wont but my case warranted the expense.

I figured between the 5 top US lawyers they flew up multiple times for months to work out a settlement they must have spend hundreds of thousands on legals alone.

Unless they think they can get a substantial amount of money out of you they will not waste their time flying over.

What is interesting is that they actually managed to get a temporary court injunction (restraining order) in Canada for me to stop my alledged activities and used whats called an Anton Pillar order to seize my Canadian servers from my webhoster.

Keep in mind that they were able to do all this and I was not breaking any Canadian law.

It had nothing to do with spamming btw.

Its pretty simple. If you are spamming Americans you fall under American law. You have to not only follow the laws of your own country but the laws of where you conduct your business, which I would assume is about 90%+ American.

If you actively market porn to China residents you could be facing a suit. Every case is different, this is why lawyers make so much money.

Well in your case the lawyers didn't try to sue you in the USA, did they? Or did they just decide it would be easier for them and would take less time for them to fly over to Canada to sue you?

In the case of an individual in the US who attempts to sue a Canadian and set the court date in their State, I think the Canadian would have to get a lawyer or show up in the state in order to fight for the actual hearing to be in Canada

The bottom line is, anybody can sue anybody for whatever reason. And when you are sued by a multi-billion dollar US corporation with dozens of in-house and hundreds of contract attorneys it will cost you more to defend it then what it's worth.

They will litigate you to death, fair or not, that's how the game is played.

Moral of the story, don't fuck with the big boys unless you got millions to spend on legals.

I got sued in the US and Canada both on the same day, both alledging the same violations of US law.

There was no comparable law in Canada at the time and still isnt.

In the case of an individual in the US suing a Canadian, the individual can sue either in the US or Canada or both. The Canadian will have to defend wherever the suit is, you can't petition a court to change countries, it wont happen.

oO

what will happen if lets say us FTC (federal trade comision) will sue someone in canada ? do they have agreement with Canada ?

What did you do wrong?

If the FTC is involved it will likely be a US civil suit and one that if you don't defend will be turned over to the FBI for US criminal indictment.

which mean if you dont defent you'll be fine, it's just if you go to usa they will put you in jail ? so as long as you in caanda you should be alright?

Its a little more complicated than that. Certain US crimes fall under the MLAT and Canada is compelled to recognize the US warrant and put you before a Canadian judge to face extradition.

An example of this is the dozens of Montreal telemarketers that have been extradited for US fraud indictments.

Alot of spammers sell fraudulent products or do phishing and other scams which are clearly illegal in Canada and would fall under the MLAT.

i understand about the fraud part... it's interesting topic, let's say it's not fraud which does not fall under MLAT it's just adult mailing, then what ?

You should really talk to a Canadian lawyer, there are many possible issues.

If they charge you under the Canspam provision of using proxies to mail there could be a case considering that proxy mailing could very well be illegal in Canada under the computer intrusion acts.

Also, forging headers, which is illegal as per Canspam may be illegal in Canada as well under the fraud statutes.

The chance of them extraditing you is low but I wouldnt say it is impossible. It really comes down to how much money you have to defend yourself, its not a position most people would want to be in.