You make a good point. But I wonder how often spammers are so obvious, and I wonder if his "leveraging" falls amiss of CAN-SPAM's specific prohibition:

(I) harvesting electronic mail addresses of the users of a website, proprietary service, or other online public forum operated by another person, without the authorization of such person; and

Unfortunately, the actual language of that provision requires that the website from which it was scraped must also include a notice stating that the website will not "give, sell, or otherwise transfer addresses maintained by such website". Here is the actual language: "(i) the electronic mail address of the recipient was obtained using an automated means from an Internet website or proprietary online service operated by another person, and such website or online service included, at the time the address was obtained, a notice stating that the operator of such website or online service will not give, sell, or otherwise transfer addresses maintained by such website or online service to any other party for the purposes of initiating, or enabling others to initiate, electronic mail messages;" It would be interesting* if people had language printed right on their business cards along the lines of: "The presence of my email address on this card does not constitute permission for you to email me absent a prior agreement, or to put my email address on a mailing list." *And by interesting, I mean legally interesting. ;-) Anne* *Dictated due to broken wrist, please forgive top-posting and any weird grammar or typos Anne P. Mitchell, Attorney at Law Legislative Consultant CEO/President, Institute for Social Internet Public Policy Member, Cal. Bar Cyberspace Law Committee Member, Colorado Cyber Committee Member, Elevations Credit Union Member Council Member, Board of Directors, Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop Member, Board of Directors, Greenwood Wildlife Rehabilitation Author: Section 6 of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (the Federal anti-spam law) Ret. Professor of Law, Lincoln Law School of San Jose Ret. Chair, Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop