Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Lake. I would briefly add that Amazon.com established Amazon.ca about seven years ago. The whole purpose was to be able to better serve our Canadian customers, featuring Canadian content, particularly Canadian authors, musicians, and movies. We want to ensure that we're able to communicate with them efficiently.

Industry committee  This act would prohibit some actions that are clearly intentional. No one accidentally falsifies a header, right? So if we receive e-mails from a source that looks just like RBC, that wasn't an accident—it was fully intentional. We think that in such cases it wouldn't make sense to force the prosecution or the plaintiff to show intent.

Industry committee  Yes, sir. The suggestions that I humbly offer would go a long way towards fixing this situation. The honest mistake would not be punished. Punishment would apply only to actions wilfully undertaken.

Industry committee  Thank you for the question, sir. My suggestion of it being somewhere around the order of five to seven years was based on the producer cycles and the product life cycles. As producers, we sell the works of Canadian authors, and we promote Canadian bands on our website. We would want those bands to have their new releases available to people who have already purchased earlier releases and are known to them without coming back to the website.

Industry committee  Absolutely, people buy within fairly narrow categories. They show they like a particular author. If, say, they bought three or four books by a particular author that they've just discovered who's written over the past decade and a half, and that author releases another work in 24 months or 19 months, we would not, under the current draft, be able to e-mail that consumer about the new release.

Industry committee  Thirty-one would certainly give us more confidence, but I think we can live with 10. There are unsubscribing mechanisms in every e-mail we send to our customers, as well as on the website. You can choose to opt out of receiving any e-mail whatsoever, including legal notices. Different mechanisms are available for our customers to opt out of receiving e-mails, as well as to opt in to receiving e-mails.

Industry committee  Thank you, Madam. We're quite comfortable with the underlying existing business relationship. Again, this is a case of where a consumer has come and bought a product at a website, like ours or of another commercial seller, so that kind of basis for implied consent we are very comfortable with.

Industry committee  That's a good point--but the next one could be better! There are many ways for feedback on particular products to be registered at Amazon.ca. Certainly our customers are vociferous in their recommendations, both pro and con. So it's very helpful to consumers who shop on the site.

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Lake. It's potentially reasonable, but here we've already recognized that there is a consumer expectation arising out of a purchase. This is a transaction. This isn't simply a matter of visiting a website or just receiving an e-mail; this is someone going and actually making a purchase.

Industry committee  Merci, monsieur. My proposal here was to recognize that, in the context of when a consumer affirmatively goes and purchases something from a seller, there be implied consent for that seller to continue to communicate with that consumer and offer that consumer new products—perhaps a sequel to the book they purchased—and that an 18-month implied consent simply is not sufficient and it does not match consumer expectations, especially given that books aren't written every 17 months, new cars don't go bad every 17 months, and so forth.

Industry committee  It's a great question, sir. I'm not a statutory expert. I think that's probably the date at which the act would come into force. Presumably it would start these clocks, because if you recall, sellers are required to keep track of when a customer purchased something. All of a sudden there is going to be a clock associated with every customer, and the clock presumably would have to start running at the time the act comes into force, just so we could keep track of such things and not have to try to go back and determine where the clock is.

Industry committee  Thank you, sir. I would have to answer simply no, I don't believe it does compromise the ability of Canadian businesses to compete and do well. Amazon.ca is generally happy with the provisions here. We've articulated a few areas where there are some pro-consumer practices that are already expected by consumers that might be foreclosed by some of the provisions, but with the minor modifications I've suggested, I think Amazon.ca will have no problem competing in this environment.

Industry committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for inviting me to testify at this hearing on this very important topic and on this most excellent bill. On behalf of Amazon.ca, let me add my voice to the chorus of praise, congratulations, gratitude, and support for your work on this matter and for Bill C-27.