As we reported, Bill C-28 (formerly the Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act), received Royal Assent on December 15, 2010, and will come into force on a day to be fixed by order of the Governor in Council.

Bill C-28 was originally introduced with a Short Title, the Fighting Internet and Wireless Spam Act. At the Committee stage of the legislative process, there was disagreement as to whether this Short Title was appropriate, given that the Bill had been introduced in a previous session as Bill C-27, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act.

In view of this disagreement, the government indicated its intention at Third Reading to change C-28’s Short Title back to the Electronic Commerce Protection Act. However, it did not do so.

At present, there is no Short Title for C-28. The Act is therefore titled An Act to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, and to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and the Telecommunications Act.

Going forward, we will refer to it simply as “C-28”.

C-28 enacts comprehensive anti-SPAM legislation and specifically amends PIPEDA to prohibit the collection of personal information by means of unauthorized access to computer systems, and the unauthorized compiling of lists of electronic addresses. A discussion of Bill C-28 can be found in our FTR Now of June 9, 2010.