Legal Question in Business Law in California

Selling Email Addresses Found on the Internet

In order to take this case further, I would need to know a very clear answer to the following question upfront: is it allowed to search email addresses of corporate employees on the web and to sell these addresses to companies and individuals for as business leads? Someone has been selling my corporate email address without my consent. If there is anything that I can do to file charges, how high do you estimate my compensation? I know for a fact that this person is finding all these email addresses on the internet (through search engines) and he is establishing a profitable business by doing so. I would greatly appreciate a prompt response. Kind regards,--name removed--Mueller


Asked on 6/06/06, 7:38 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Timothy J. Walton Internet Attorney

Re: Selling Email Addresses Found on the Internet

What you are describing is called "scraping" email addresses from web sites. The sale of email addresses is not itself unlawful, and neither is scraping (under most circumstances), however, sending email advertising in violation of federal law to an address that was scraped is an "aggravating factor" in enforcement of CAN-SPAM (the federal law).

Unfortunately, only ISPs and attorneys general may enforce CAN-SPAM.

Your company may qualify as an ISP (since it provides you and other employees with Internet connectivity), but only your company would then have standing to sue.

There is a basis for you to sue under California state law, but the headers must have misleading, false or forged content, and you have not given any indication whether that is the case. Moreover, since you describe a corporate account, you may still lack standing as a "recipient".

If you would like to discuss your particular situation in more detail, please feel free to contact me directly.

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Answered on 6/06/06, 11:28 pm


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