[larrys]

As far as the Aup/Tos for that you can roll your own Smtp. Besides borderline legal is borderline legal. And even things that aren't "legal" are not always prosecuted. Not thinking that someone sending out 5000 spam messages even is going to cause a big prosecution.

More importantly the issue here is the way the post says "a large email campaign". What is defined as "large"?

I don't think taking the time to compile 200 email addresses and send a personal email really is to big of a problem if you've taken the time to go to the effort of doing what the OP is saying (in other words you didn't just buy a list of names). On the other hand if you've gotten mechanical turks and mined 20,000 emails maybe it is.

I don't think (despite the definition) that "spam" is anything unsolicited anymore than calling someone by phone to try to get them to buy something is automatically the same as robo calling or cubicle calling.