What you're asking is something obvious. You'll be emailing a bunch of guys that don't know you and are probably getting spam emails from somewhere else already so they might just ignore your email as well. Spam.
Depends on what you call a spam email. If that's one you get from someone who is advertising viagra and you are happy about it, then it's not spam. I'd generally consider not buying email addresses. Would actually ban that kind of business, if I could
There is no right or wrong answer to this because spam isn't a legal term in its common usage. You can buy data that is completely, 100% legally compliant including names of users who agreed to a TOS that includes rental of their name and to the casual person it's still spam. I'm not trying to dodge the argument one way or the other, I'm just pointing out that you can ask this same question to five people and get three answers. Then you can ask this question to a court and a person and get two answers. In that regard it's totally dependent on the situation in question and the person answering. So there is no yes or no answer in the non-legal realm without more specifics, there's just how people feel - and most people feel like anything they don't like is spam, so in its casual usage that's all that matters. Now if your concerns are legal then there are exacting guidelines and specifications for what is and isn't spam and how people feel doesn't amount to a bucket of warm spit, so if you're interested in that answer then go look up CAN-SPAM laws and the various state laws in places like WA and UT.
Yes this is spam .... Spam is when a person receive an e-mail from a company who didn't signed-up in their database... So buying emails - spam Cheers
There are smart ways to get away clean while selling email addresses. However I can't imagine a company contacting their millions of email address holders to ask permission for their details to be sold. Yes, some TOS mention when you sign up that your address may be used for occasional contacts but that is a bla-bla. Does not cover selling your details to a 3rd party, does it.. If I were wrong, I'd never sign up on a website that sells my date of birth and email address and start earning while keeping me busy erasing spam
And there's no guarantee that your "spam" will not be ignored. In fact, you risk to be blacklisted soon after you push your first email out. It only takes a group of users to report you as spammer and you're done.
If you actually know the law and you can also understand the term as it is being used in this thread "in its common usage" then you should understand my point. Actual spam is illegal, what people "feel" like is spam is not. What I said is bulletproof. A lot of people in this thread feel like mailing a purchased list is spam without knowing any more facts. They're legally incorrect to make that assumption based only on the facts given, but that doesn't change the common usage of the term to refer to any email that a user feels like they don't want or deserve based on whatever their personal criteria are. Mind you, I'm not trying to argue the veracity what people feel or don't feel (because there are no right answers), I'm just trying to clarify the difference between personal philosophy and law. It's an unpopular topic to even try to clarify people's views on because it's so hated, but facts are facts and feelings are feelings. Now this guy sounds like he's talking about buying a list of names from some site for $20 and that sounds like spamming to me, but I don't know the details of what he's talking about. Technically, purchasing a targeted, double opt-in list from a giant like Cendant could be called purchasing emails from a web site and sending them out using legally compliant means could be called bulk emailing (it is often called bulk mailing inside the industry by players that no person here would dare refer to as spammers [EDIT] Used to be, may not be anymore, haven't talked to people inside any major consumer brands in a long time). Without more information it's impossible to know whether he would be spamming or not regardless of what it sounds like to me or to you.
Buying email lists is not a good business decision nowadays. It may have worked well when the internet was in its initial stages... but definately not suggested nowadays. Firstly, the list can lead to legal problems (depending on who receives the emails). Secondly, it is not targeted and therefore not very useful. Email marketing is about building up relevant targeted email lists where people OPT-IN to receive information... the key being they opt in to receive it from certain sources, not necessarily from all sorts of people that their email was sold to. You would be better of creating your own opt-in newsletter on your site (and then trying to generate traffic to the site)... with your newsletter you would then be sending to people who have chosen to receive email from you and therefore more likely to read it. This complies with the CAN-SPAM act and as long as you allow people to unsubscribe from your newsletter then there shouldn't be any legal problems.
Its not necessarily SPAM as the site could be registration. If you signed up for something and you are recieving it, then its not SPAM. by the way, does anyone know any coregestration sites?