Hello, Is advertising your services one time to a person, without storing their email, that did not give you permission to email them the same as illegally harvesting/storing emails and continuously sending them emails? I'm just mostly confused on how email "advertising" and email "harvesting" are different and whether one-time email advertising (without storing their email address) is legal or illegal. Thanks.
Email advertising goes to a list that you acquired or developed legally. Harvesting emails and sending advertisements is spam and there are laws against unsolicited email advertising. A lot of them. It doesn't matter if you do it one time, you won't be charged with one count, you will be charged with the number of emails that you send...so if you send 1000 emails, that's 1000 counts.
Email harvesting? - I think you meant email address harvesting which is defined in the Can-Spam Act of 2003 as the electronic mail address of the recipient was obtained using an automated means from an Internet website or proprietary online service operated by another person, and such website or online service included, at the time the address was obtained, a notice stating that the operator of such website or online service will not give, sell, or otherwise transfer addresses maintained by such website or online service to any other party for the purposes of initiating, or enabling others to initiate, electronic mail messages. In the U.S. it is legal to send unsolicited commercial email as long as it is done in compliance with the Can-Spam Act of 2003. Compliance means you: do not use fake headers, do not send mail via proxies, that you do provide and observe opt-outs, etc. There is no requirement to use only opt-in addresses. Some states in the U.S. have their own anti-spam laws, but often Can-Spam will pre-empt their enforcement.