internet email spam can-spam-act-of-2003
Legality of mass email situation
<p>I am launching a business directed towards college campuses. I know the email address format of the first college I will be launching at is firstname.lastname@college.edu . Basically, I would not have these emails because people signed up to hear from me, I would be taking a list of possible first names and last names and combining them in the email format of ifrstname.lastname@college.edu and sending out an email to all, whichever emails happen to actually exist the message would be delivered to. Is this illegal in anyway? I do not know much about spam or the legality of it so I apologize if this seems like a rookie question.</p>

<p>I assume based on your reference to .edu and your <a href="/questions/tagged/can-spam-act-of-2003" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;can-spam-act-of-2003&#39;" rel="tag">can-spam-act-of-2003</a> tag that you are interested in United States law.  The scheme you describe is illegal under the CAN-SPAM Act.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/7704" rel="nofollow noreferrer">15 USC 7704 (b) (1) (a) (ii)</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>(b) Aggravated violations relating to commercial electronic mail</p>
<p>(1)
Address harvesting and dictionary attacks</p>
<p>(A) In general</p>
<p>It is unlawful
for any person to initiate the transmission, to a protected computer,
of a commercial electronic mail message that is unlawful under
subsection (a), or to assist in the origination of such message
through the provision or selection of addresses to which the message
will be transmitted, if such person had actual knowledge, or knowledge
fairly implied on the basis of objective circumstances, that—</p>
<p>(i) the
electronic mail address of the recipient was obtained using an
automated means from an Internet website or proprietary online service
operated by another person, and such website or online service
included, at the time the address was obtained, a notice stating that
the operator of such website or online service will not give, sell, or
otherwise transfer addresses maintained by such website or online
service to any other party for the purposes of initiating, or enabling
others to initiate, electronic mail messages; or</p>
<p>(ii) the electronic
mail address of the recipient was obtained using an automated means
that generates possible electronic mail addresses by combining names,
letters, or numbers into numerous permutations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The last part (ii) specifically forbids what you propose (&quot;combining names... into various permutations).</p>
<p>Under <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/7706" rel="nofollow noreferrer">15 USC 7706</a> you may be liable for statutory damages of up to $250 per email.</p>
<p>In addition to being illegal, I suspect your plan will also be ineffective: this sort of spam attack would be really easy for the university to detect and block.</p>
