Odds of winning (a contest law term).
Section 74.06 of Canada’s federal Competition Act requires that certain disclosures be made when conducting “any contest, lottery, game of chance or skill, or mixed chance and skill, or otherwise [disposing] of any product or other benefit …” These Competition Act requirements include disclosing “any fact that may materially affect the odds of winning.” Based on these requirements, most contest organizers provide short rules / mini rules in all point-of-purchase materials (i.e., in all print, online and other electronic media) that include, among other things, the odds of winning a prize in the contest. An odds of winning term is also commonly included in the long rules (i.e., official contest rules) of a contest, which are typically linked from the short rules and hosted on an online sub-page. Where winners in a contest are chosen by way of random draw from all eligible entries, the odds of winning are typically stated in contest rules as “odds of winning will depend on number of eligible entries received before contest closes.” For some types of contests, however, such as where the number of potential winners is known (e.g., in seeded prize contests, such as scratch-and-win or instant win contests), the odds of winning a prize should be drafted more precisely. In seeded contests where a specific number of prizes is available to be won, the odds of winning will depend on the number of available prizes among the total number of plays, pieces, etc. (e.g., “odds of winning one in five”, “odds of winning 1/200”, etc.).
Online Behavioural Advertising.
One form of Internet advertising.
Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Policy Position on Online Behavioural Advertising: “In this case, an advertising service places an advertisement on a webpage based on tracking data collected across multiple unrelated websites. This practice refers to using information about where a user has been. For example if a user has visited websites about pets in the past, then ads related to pets might be shown on various web sites, even sites that are not related to pets (e.g., an online newspaper).”
Online romance scam.
Consumer Protection BC, “Top Ten Scams 2013 – Just in case a scam is around the corner”: “You meet the person virtually through a social networking or dating site. Your online romance scammer builds a relationship, sometimes spending several months in building a rapport online with the intention of making you feel that you are in a romantic relationship. The person you met online turns out to be criminal who typically says that they are in a far away country and that they eventually want to meet the victim in person. Around this time, the criminal will note that they can’t afford to travel and will seek assistance from you in covering travel costs. Sometimes there’s an emergency, a sick family member for example, and that they need financial help from you to visit the sick individual. Of course, the requests for help are all a scam and the money wired by the victim, often in very large amounts, is now in the hands of the criminal.”
Open loop gift card.
Financial Consumer Agency of Canada: “There are two main types of prepaid cards. Both require you to pay up front to ‘load’ money on to a card for later use and both are sometimes referred to as ‘gift cards’. Prepaid cards from retailers can only be used at a single store or group of stores, such as a chain or shopping mall. Other prepaid cards, usually branded with a payment card network operator’s logo, such as American Express, MasterCard or Visa, can be used at most merchants that display the specific network’s logo.”
Datacard Group: “A gift card is a type of stored-value payment card commonly issued by retailers and banks. Gift cards are preloaded with a set value. There are two major types of cards – those that can be used only at one store chain or one location (closed loop) and those that can be used anywhere (open loop). Closed loop gift cards generally carry no fees or expiration date – the issuing store makes its money off the profit from selling merchandise. Open loop gift cards always carry fees. Because they are issued by banks or credit card transaction processors, such as Visa or MasterCard, fees are the only way they can profitably issue gift cards.”
Ontario Consumer Protection Act Regulations: “’Open loop gift card agreement’ means a gift card agreement that entitles the holder of a gift card to apply it towards purchasing goods or services from multiple unaffiliated sellers.”
Oral consent (Canadian anti-spam law (CASL)).
In general, Canada’s federal anti-spam legislation (CASL) requires that senders of unsolicited commercial electronic messages (CEMs) to Canadians have either express or implied consent from recipients, unless an exception under CASL applies. Express consent can be gathered from recipients under CASL either in writing or orally. Written consent may include both paper and electronic forms (examples of the latter include a box on a web page or filling out a consent form at point-of-purchase). The CRTC’s view is that oral consent is sufficient if: (i) it can be verified by an independent third party; or (ii) where there is a complete and unedited audio recording of the consent. In either case, the onus is on the sender to prove that they had consent to send CEMs. It is very important for electronic marketers to carefully review the requirements for each type of consent (whether express or implied) or exemption under CASL, as CASL sets out very specific requirements for each.
For more information about CASL, see: CASL (Anti-spam Law), CASL Compliance, CASL Compliance Errors, CASL Compliance Tips and Contests and CASL.
For information about the CASL compliance checklists and precedents that we offer for sale, see: CASL Compliance Checklists and Precedents.
Ordinary selling price claims.
Competition Bureau, Misleading Advertising and Labelling: “The false or misleading ordinary selling price provisions of the Competition Act are designed to ensure that when products are promoted at sale prices, consumers are not misled by reference to inflated regular prices. The Act prohibits false or misleading representations to the public as to the ordinary selling price of a product, in any form whatsoever. Ordinary selling price is validated in one two ways: either a substantial volume of the product was sold at that price or higher, within a reasonable amount of time (volume test); or the product was offered for sale, in good faith, for a substantial period of time at that price or a higher price (time test).”
“A price cannot be referred to as the ordinary price when it is inflated to create the illusion of offering a better deal.” [Sections 74.01(2), 74.01(3), Competition Act]. For more information, see: Competition Bureau, Misleading representations and deceptive marketing practices.
For more information, see: Ordinary Selling Price (OSP) Claims and Sales Claims in Canada.
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