The Fine Line Between Theft and Marketing

A member of the ISP-Marketing list provokes a heated discussion with plans to send an e-mail to 5,000 subscribers of a competitor—the competitor to whom he sold his former ISP.

[September 18, 2002]

On the ISP-Marketing list in August, BH queried,

"I recently started a new ISP in my local area. I had previously started an ISP here in 1995, and sold it in 1999—and I still have a list of about 5000 e-mail addresses of users from the previous ISP. I would like to e-mail these folks, just once, and let them know that my new company is available to serve them. Would this be unethical spamming? I'm on the fence about doing this, but it really would be very effective marketing for us."

GP suggested that, under the right circumstances, it might not be a bad idea:

"It is spam, but you're only sending it once, and you did have a business relationship with the recipients. If the company you sold to is doing a bad job, I would think that your former subscribers would love to know that you are back in business. Compared to the nasty and misleading spam I receive daily, I would not be offended at all."

Others pointed out that there are more serious matters to consider than spamming:

[NS noted] "The real issue isn't whether or not this would be spamming. The real issue is that, since you sold the ISP that list of e-mail addresses, it doesn't belong to you. Using it for any means whatsoever would be theft."

[WT agreed] "That old e-mail address list is the intellectual property of the new owner. You do not have the right to use it in the way you are proposing. What you are proposing is not only unethical, it's illegal. It's a bad idea, and it's not worth the ill will it will bring."

[WW offered] "Your prior involvement makes this a clear cut issue. If those people are unhappy customers, there are better and more ethical ways of marketing that can still get to those people without unethically targeting the customers of your former business."

[BM warned] "As someone who has been on the other end of such tactics, I'd caution that the odds of this ending up in litigation, costing you much more than you would ever make of it as a business in legal fees alone, are pretty high, particularly with the large number of attorneys now trying to 'make their name' in the poorly defined arena of Internet law."

[BK observed] "It's tempting, but it's unethical and illegal. Delete the record, destroy it, destroy all tape backups of it-and don't be tempted."

BH added that any publicity regarding such contact wouldn't be a good thing:

"I'd talk to an attorney before doing this e-mailing. Even if you are acting completely within the law, a law suit filed by the new owner of your old ISP could bring a lot of negative publicity your way. Even if you were innocent, you could very quickly be found guilty in the court of public opinion."

—End