I am really getting sick of them. Their so called option to remove yourself from list doesn't work at all. It's just a big BS. I tried more than 10 times and I am still getting the crap. Someone is showing you his/her deep love
Don't listen to the responses here (no offense), most here have no clue about email marketing. It sounds like an excellent idea! Especially if your directory is niche related, you can make a killing even with a 1000-3000 list. Go for it I reckon.
I own a directory and websites. I submit to other directories. I would never harvest emails or anything like that.Because I want to NUKE spam emails.
If you must put someone's email on their directory listing, at least mask it. God, I'd love to hang email spammers by their toes and dip them in hot fat... Sorry, got carried away... Traume Webmaster (for lack of a better word) AdHotShot.com
So what you would like to do is to spam the spammers? Won't work, even if the email address is valid, most spammers don't check their own mails.
Spam is UNSOLICITED Email. However if you want to send emails with offers or updates from your site to the person(s) who listed their site(s) in your directory I think it's best to inform them BEFORE they use their email address on your site that you will send them emails, on ocasion. If they are informed that they might receive emails, then it is not considered SPAM.
just make sure you have a good privacy policy in place, ensure they know about possible newsletters when they submit, and have easy access for them to get removed.
I can vouch for people doing it, as I have an email address which I use for nothing but directory submissions, I get loads of spam through on it, there is nowhere else it could come from for this address.