That's why i'm asking it here because i want some opinions. And again it's not for me. I don't want to do mailings anyways.
I just (outside of the casino business) met in the last few years due to my job a lot of IT companies and some of the really big "address" sellers, and interestingly they often claim that all the adressess are verified to receive any promotional E-Mail. Of course it sounds fishy to me, but if that isn't the case how can all these companies still be in Business?
If COMPANY XYZ says, all our E-Mail Addresses are confirmed to receive any promotional offers via E-Mail (Because they agreed to that through different Newsletters, Lotteries etc.) how can it then be Spam when someone sends to these addresses?
It's all down to how they register "agreement".
Many use sneaky smallprint to slip agreement under the radar to the unwitting recipient. Often, the customer is lead to believe that their email address will ONLY be used by the company they sign up with, not sold on.
"informed consent" is where it is not sneaked in, but customers are presumed to have NOT agreed unless they have taken a specific action, such as ticking a box that states "tick if you agree to us passing your email address to anyone we want, and for them to pass it on as well". This is what is actually happening for these big address sellers to get their lists, but if the truth was placed next to an opt in box, their lists would be a good deal smaller.
The other trick is to have a "agree that we may pass on your details to selected third parties", often accompanied by pressure to agree such as by saying that if you don't agree, you wont benefit from the full service as parts of it are contracted out. Customers think that "selected third parties" means that the company will thoroughly vet to whom they pass on the details, and impose conditions that it goes no further, or that it is used solely for them to provide their duties as subcontractor. In fact "selected third parties" pretty much allows anything. "selected" is not defined, and so the company could "select" anyone they want, or who is prepared to pay a big enough price. This means that far from limited distribution, the information quickly becomes an asset that is being freely exchanged among a whole raft of companies, often offering products and services that bear no relation to what the customer originally signed up for.
The spammers then claim that provided they include instructions for opting out, whatever they send is not spam. In fact, this procedure is itself a trick, as by using the opt out facility, as well as opting out of that one newsletter out of hundreds, you have just confirmed that the email is active, and that spam is reaching the recipient. This means that even if the opt out is complied with, the spamming company now has an even more valuable asset, a currently active email address, and as they have no further use for it, they will sell it on to another spammer.
Once recipients start receiving emails from companies they have never heard of for products they have never shown an interest in, it does not matter how technically "not spam" it is, the recipient has no way of telling the difference, and as they know they can't possibly have "knowingly opted in", it will be regarded as spam, reported as spam, which could lead to the sender's domain getting blacklisted.