[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by the-illini

I asked where they got the email list in a thread that was up about this auction house a few weeks ago and got a PM message saying that "Crazy Uncle auctions purchased a number of email lists". Nothing more specific than that.

Admittedly not a thorough search on the legalities, but the first thing I found.

Given that the specific rules in terms of buying/selling and/or sharing list lack total clarity, a general rule is that it is good practice to avoid buying or selling email lists. The buyer or seller of an email list can be liable for a CAN-SPAM violation – a criminal offense punishable by imprisonment. This arises when said buyer or seller either sells email addresses or sends emails to purchased addresses when he or she knew, or should have known by implication, that the list was the result of harvesting or was taken from a website or other service that warranted that it would not sell the users’ email addresses to third parties, the latter of which is commonly asserted in most websites’ ‘Terms of Service.’