This checklist suggests listwashing, filtering out spam traps, and other practices, generally frowned upon. Do not purchase lists. Period.
If you haven't ensured people have signed up themselves and using dual opt-in then the list is pretty much useless and should not be used. Any serious ESP will suspend accounts of customers sending mails to purchased lists.
I want to clarify that my checklist doesn't advocate for people to purchase lists. If someone is located in a jurisdiction that permits sending of unsolicited commercial mail, and they purchased a list then they should validate it. Validating also applies to contacts acquired through a single-opt in form (with a consent check) as some users will enter fake email address in order to download an ebook or free product. Though you can always send the download link in the email which forces people to use legitimate email address. But your point is well made, I should add a disclaimer, that users should comply with their countries laws and regulations when sending promotional email.
Have to disagree here. Companies do cold outreach and purchase leads all the time. From my experience as long as you clean your list, schedule batch delivery, personalize and comply with the CAN-SPAM At, ESP's will not block you.
Just because people do something doesn’t mean they should.
In that, I focus on what you might call ethics. But as for the legality aspect:
Through most of the civilised world (at a minimum, those that I know of definitely: AU, NZ, all EU, UK, CA), sending unsolicited commercial messages at all is illegal, with very little in the way of exception or subtlety. The USA’s CAN-SPAM Act is the outlier, unusually permissive, by being largely opt-out rather than opt-in like everyone else. (And frankly it’s not at all uncommon for the USA to be an outlier in a bad way among first-world countries.)
And taking the legality aspects further, it’s common for people to ignore restrictive laws that aren’t being particularly seriously enforced, and spam legislation is often like that around the globe. Just because lots of people are doing it doesn’t even mean it’s legal.
I agree, in the civilised world, UCE is spam and there is little to no scope for "grey areas".
For example, the ICO (UK) has the following to say:
You must be very careful before using bought-in lists for recorded calls, texts or emails. You can only use them if all the people on the list specifically consented to receive that type of message from you. Generic consent covering any third party will not be enough.[1]
Unsolicited commercial email are outright illegal in many parts of Europe, and unless there's clear prior consent selling/buying personal data is a GDPR violation.
If you use a purchased list and end up getting a bunch of spam complaints, and you tell your ESP you bought the list, then I promise you they won't be very happy.
If you haven't ensured people have signed up themselves and using dual opt-in then the list is pretty much useless and should not be used. Any serious ESP will suspend accounts of customers sending mails to purchased lists.