From a Newbie: Commercial List

[KevinB027]

I purchased a list of commercial business owners.  I understood the law to state that an email can be sent busihness to business as long as you include your contact info and clearly state the purpose.  In my case I have a closed business and need to sell off the assets asap.  It seems like the rules at CC are stricter than what the law actually states.   Do you have a thought?

[William_A]

Hello @KevinB027 ,

We have strict guidelines regarding purchased lists, because of their likelihood to get spam reported if the receiving contact doesn't recognize the sender, which in turn hurts our sending reputation and our customers'- regardless of any particular anti-spam laws. Obviously, this can get hazy depending on the situation. If your list import flags any of our automated systems, if we receive a significant number of spam reports, or an inordinately high number of unsubscribes from a sendout, then your account would be flagged for review. 

For a couple of examples, if an office supply company buys out another office supply company, and inherits their contact list, then that would be an example where the "purchase" of the list would be generally considered okay. If someone goes out of business and just sells their contacts' personal details to another random company, then that is where it'd be spammy or brush up against anti-spam laws.

You're welcome to reach out to our Review teams for a bit more insight if you'd like, but I can't in good faith recommend selling your contacts' details to a wholly separate company that they didn't consent to receive emails from. Likewise, if you plan to use our system to send to a purchased list, then your account will likely be flagged for Review and locked until you address it.

See also:

Constant Contact's email permission policy

Constant Contact's SMS permission policy