[Ensorceled]

I subscribe to a bunch of newsletters that have distribution lists of much, much more than 30K.

What definition of "spammer" are you using?

[elif]

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.

[SimianLogic]

If we're getting technical:

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).

[Ensorceled]

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".