During the past two years I’ve received 8 unsolicited bulk emails from this voice over person.
A couple of friends of mine report receiving the same.
It appears he diligently is sending them every three months.
It’s almost certain that he bought a list “contacts” in the voice over industry.
Possibly some self-proclaimed marketing expert told him that’s a good way to market his services.
(It isn’t.)
Yes, it establishes his position in the industry as “desperate for work” as well as “unprofessional.”
Yes, it’s spam.
But Is All Spam Illegal?
In the U.S., spam (Unsolicited Bulk Email) is not illegal.
But this guy’s spam is illegal.
The Federal Trade Commission’s CAN-SPAM Act requires the sender to “include your valid physical postal address” to “tell recipients where you’re located.”
This spam doesn’t include a physical postal address.
CAN-SPAM also requires senders to “tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you.”
This spam doesn’t offer any sort of “opt out” mechanism.
That’s 2 violations of federal law in one ineffective, image-damaging email.
A couple of friends of mine report receiving the same unwanted emails…
…by forwarding them to me with comments such as “Good grief!” — along with the occasional expletive.
I’m guessing this guy just doesn’t know better.
I’m guessing someone convinced him that buying a highly inaccurate, aggregated list and using it to beg for work is a good idea.
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What if it would have started with “Dear Dan,” ?
@Mike: Unless it genuinely is a single email being sent from the VO talent to me and not part of an email blast, that shouldn’t run afoul of the law. (I’m not a lawyer, not giving legal advice, etc.)
But simply including the person’s first name doesn’t preclude its being spam.
If your database has the name of each recipient, it’s easy to send a thousand or a million or 10 million emails, each of which is addressed to the recipient by name. But it still would be spam.