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The law referenced is Canadian, but I've often wondered which set of laws cover something like an email list (and things like affiliate links on blogs). What if my potential recipients span several countries? Should I abide by my local rules? The local rules for my email list provider (if I'm using something like Mailchimp)? The union of all of the recipients' local rules?

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Your local laws are the ones that you could potentially be held accountable to.

MailChimp is American, Campaign Monitor is Australia. They are subject to the laws of their lands.

However, the rules that apply to you most directly are the rules of your upstream SMTP provider. They will be more harsh than your legal restrictions, and with good reason. If we relied on the courts to keep us free from spam, then we'd drown in it.

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