According to Internet law, it is acceptable to send unsolicited emails provided you include your company name, address, phone number, and a legitimate method for people to request removal from your list. Although a good business will work hard and for a long period of time to obtain subscribers to its mailing list, it is not illegal to send unsolicited emails as long as you follow the above mentioned standards.

I have a mailing list of over 150,000 subscribers. It has taken me over 12 years to build that list.

Spam is not "sending unsolicited emails." Spam is where you do not follow government guidelines in so doing.

Last year it cost me over $70,000 to change all of my online forms over to captcha. I have over 58 active domains with lots of online forms. The amount of spam was overwhelming. Now I get very little spam.

Federal and state governments do not have budgets to go after spammers. It is extremely costly to find the spammers. I think if we continue to keep our eyes and ears open, we can spot these people and turn them over to law enforcement. For example, a man visited my Sunday School class a couple of years ago. A member of the class was requesting prayer for a friend of hers who could not afford to buy needed medication. The visitor chimed in that she could give his name to her friend because he sells cheap drugs online which he gets from a doctor friend. How illegal is that?!!! He also said he gets business by sending out tons of emails to people. I contacted church staff the following day, but they did not want to pursue the matter. I should have gotten his business card and turned him in to the feds myself.