According to @SimianLogic, they had 300,000 users. If they are sending about 1,000 emails a day, that would mean that each user is receiving an average of 1.2 emails a year.
There is also a monthly newsletter that goes to 30,000. That means that in addition to the 1.2 emails a year each user receives, 10% of users receive an additional one (1) email per month. Given that only 10% of users receive the newsletter, I'm assuming it isn't too difficult to opt out.
This doesn't seem like spam. Rather, IntroCave (now IntroMaker) has hundreds of thousands of users and therefore needs to send thousands of emails.
These emails all go to users who have signed up for an account. Traffic is weird right now (domain migration in progress), but I was getting ~250-350 user signups a day.
I send a monthly newsletter to users who have been recently active, a welcome sequence of 2 or 3 emails depending on where you sign up, and have an abandoned cart sequence of 3 emails (here's the link to your video / your preview will expire soon / your preview has expired).
Both of those channels (newsletter / automated sequences) have opt-outs, but the automated ones see pretty good engagement. The max number of automated emails is in the 5/6 range before unsubscribes, so it only takes ~3-4 emails per user to get up to 1k/day -- especially when you toss in another 100 or so for normal password resets, receipts, order emails, etc.
CANSPAM defines it by describing the opt-in and opt-out nature of the messages.
What he did is upload a mailing list manually, rather than curate one with a service. This manual practice makes it almost impossible to guarantee that valid unsub requests have been honored, among other things. In this particular case, he admits accidentally including bounce out addresses.
That's why good email services make it difficult to upload 100k addresses and call it a day.
Additionally, permission to email someone with app notifications is not permission to send them bulk.
CANSPAM doesn't cover account/privacy/ToS notices -- it's not a marketing message (falls into "other content").
I didn't "upload a mailing list manually" -- the emails are all attached to user records in my wholly-owned database. I send them from a queue on my own server, not through Mailgun's mailing list product (which queues a message to every email on the list instantly and doesn't allow you to ramp it up over time).
"Newsletter" is easier to type than "new content and product updates," but again -- these go out to existing customers and account holders. There's implied permission there from the fact that they signed up for an account. Opt-out is easy, and I don't feel guilty about emailing people who signed up for an account.
I would send this to the whole list if deliverability didn't go to hell after about 50k users (or maybe I just need to write better emails to keep people engaged/opening).
My reading was that he actually he HAD an opt-in/curated list just hadn't removed the bounces and other detritus the list had generated over time. I didn't get any impression that he was spamming people, the problems were all bounces gmail/yahoo "mark as spam".
I don't see any evidence of being a spammer.
According to @SimianLogic, they had 300,000 users. If they are sending about 1,000 emails a day, that would mean that each user is receiving an average of 1.2 emails a year.
There is also a monthly newsletter that goes to 30,000. That means that in addition to the 1.2 emails a year each user receives, 10% of users receive an additional one (1) email per month. Given that only 10% of users receive the newsletter, I'm assuming it isn't too difficult to opt out.
This doesn't seem like spam. Rather, IntroCave (now IntroMaker) has hundreds of thousands of users and therefore needs to send thousands of emails.