Even with "good intent" the message in question is clearly in violation of CAN-SPAM and Cal. Bus. Prof. Code Sec. 17529, of which the sender was informed of when my server was accessed. It was very clearly an "electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service." The sender did not have my direct consent to deliver such messages, nor did they have a preexisting business relationship with me.
There was no notification that subscribing to this list would result in off-list commercial messages. There is no way to opt out of these messages. The message in question did not conform to the requirements of CAN-SPAM in regard to, at least: the CAN-SPAM requirements
- Identifying the message as an advertisement
- Including the valid physical postal address of the sender, recognized by the US Postal Service
- Providing an opt-out mechanism (at all in this case), compliant with
Yes, in this particular instance I found the content to be not distasteful; however is is very clearly "spam" as legally defined in the US and in California.