Is it illegal to sell emails?

So a friend asked me if it is illegal to sell emails.

 

like hotmail yahoo and gmail? emails?

 

well there are many... hotmail, yahoo, gmail... there are some from different email hostings...
So is it illegal or what?

 

yes its illegal because you agree to the Windows Live Service Agreement and Privacy Statement, when you register an email at hotmail and if u look into the Windows Live Service Agreement.. you'll find

4. How You May Not Use the Service.
In using the service, you may not:

engage in, facilitate or further unlawful conduct;
use the service in a way that harms us or our advertisers, affiliates, resellers, distributors and/or vendors, or any customer of ours or our advertisers, affiliates, resellers, distributors and/or vendors;
use any portion of the service as a destination linked from any unsolicited bulk messages or unsolicited commercial messages ("spam");
use any unauthorized third party software or service to access the Microsoft instant messaging network (currently known as the .NET Messenger Service);
use any automated process or service to access and/or use the service (such as a BOT, a spider, periodic caching of information stored by Microsoft, or "meta-searching");
use any unauthorized means to modify or reroute, or attempt to modify or reroute, the service;
damage, disable, overburden, or impair the service (or the network(s) connected to the service) or interfere with anyone's use and enjoyment of the service; or
resell or redistribute the service, or any part of the service.

read whats in blod that applies to hotmail but im sure its the same for yahoo and gmail..

 

What do you mean? Selling email accounts or selling other people's email addresses to get spammed etc?

 

oh u mean email lists? or just any email address...

 

selling other people's email addresses: yes
email lists: yes

 

If you are harvesting people's email addresses without their explicit permission for the very purpose which you want to use the email address for then it would be illegal in most countries.

If you got the explicit permission from those people's email address you gather and they know that their email address would be used for whatever purpose it is intended for then it would be okay.

It all boils down to whether the email address owners knows what their email address is used for and if they given full permission or not.

 

No, It's not exactly illegal if you do it in the right way.. If you get permission from the owner of the emails then it is in no-way illegal.

 

if they optin and agree then you can

without permission NO

 

There's nothing illegal about having a list of emails and selling it. It's illegal to send anything to to those emails unless they opt in. Whoever you sell your list to should know whether the emails are opt in or not. Even if they did opt in you're still on shaky ground. In my opinion selling a list of emails is probably more trouble then it's worth.

 

WTF?

Its a federal offense to sell email lists which result in spam so is spamming. Unless they signed up to get the message ex. speical offers or discounts via aweber or some autoreponder.


end of story

 

At the end of the day SPAM is illegal..

 

This is an old post so hopefully I will get some replys.

This thread started with someone asking if selling email lists was illegal.

The answers spewed out were ALL over the board.

However - every single answer had one thing in common...

They ALL lacked any proof or reference in writing to back up their assertions.

Anyone care to belly up to the table and put the law down - in writing - where it says that it is illegal to sell email lists? And then how about sending email marketing to those emails? Where does it say that is illegal?

As far as I know - the CAN SPAM ACT of 2003 protects the rights to send unsolicited bulk email as long as you follow their rules. Here...let me be the first to put up any kind of backing to my words...in writing:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus61.shtm

I await you PROOF response.

 

its illegal, dont do it thats all. Prevent yourself from trouble please

 

yes but everyone does it.

 

other people steal, kill, and commit crimes of various types. Does that make it ok for anyone else to do the same thing????????

 

So I ask for proof...wht do I get?

4th grade level antics...don't do it...PLEASE! Everyone is doing it....would you jump off a cliff?

You see people...this is exactly the kind of crap that I asked you NOT to do. I won't listen to ANYONE who does't back up their comments without pointing to the law.

If you are just an ignorant moron who gets his or her kicks by adding more confusion (look at me! Look at me!) Then g post somewhere else.

I pointed to the law. 2003 CAN SPAM ACT - also referred to as the You Can Spam Act - says it's perfectly legal to send mass email. Just follow the rules. It also says that it's not illegal to send to any email list as long as such list wasn't created from taking emails out of web sites where the owner says that the emails are not for distributiob or resake or reuse.

Nowhere does th CAN SPAM ACT discuss the legality of reselling email lists.

So all you people out there that seem to be 'oh so concerned' about me 'avoidng trouble' by not reselling email lists...can yyou throw some intelligence into conversation and tell me exactly what law makes it illegal? Where is the PROOF of this trouble you so desparately warn me against?

 

Actually the CAN SPAM ACT is a load of crap.

If I have not requested information from a specific source and that source sends me ads
then they ARE spamming me, irrelevant of what bollocks (including the Can spam act ) they have as a disclaimer.

It some little Jerk off sells my email address without my permission then the purchaser
WILL be spamming me if they use my email address to send any ads.

If my email address is harvested from any site and used to send me ads the sender IS spamming me.

If I sign up to xyz mailing list and the owner manually adds me to ABC mailing list and then sends me ads
from ABC list they are spamming me. I did NOT sign up to ABC list and I did not give permission to be added to ABC list.
Any ads from XYZ list will be totally legal as I requested them by joining that list.

The ONLY ads that are not spam are those sent by the person who's mailing list I signed up.

Is it illegal to sell my email address YES it is as I come under the UK protection of data act.
do your own google search for it.

I take it you are a spammer and seller of email addresses?

 

How do you collect them and what's the license (privacy policy) they approve when you collect their emails?
Yes, you can if you take their permission, but this will decrease your conversion rate dramatically.