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Email Harvesters
Jeice
regular
regular
So, a friend of mine is working for the Toronto School District Board and he was asked to get all the emails from this site and put it into a document.
http://www.tdsb.on.ca/schools/tdsb_school_search/SearchBySchool.asp?show=AllElementary
only problem is, to get an email, he has to individually click on the link, and then copy and paste the email address. Which, is very very tedious. Is there a better way to do this? Legally?
I was searching through the internet and found out that this is exactly what email harvesting programs do. Now, I know they are mainly used for spamming purposes, but this time, it's for a legit reason. There's this excerpt from wikipedia concering the legality of it.
But, I don't really understand what that second bullet point is saying. Is it saying that it's legal if I'm doing it for non-spamming purposes?
As for the program itself, I found this website that seems to provide what I want to do. Is it legit?
Should he use that program? Or should he just man up and tediously go through each of those links?
http://www.tdsb.on.ca/schools/tdsb_school_search/SearchBySchool.asp?show=AllElementary
only problem is, to get an email, he has to individually click on the link, and then copy and paste the email address. Which, is very very tedious. Is there a better way to do this? Legally?
I was searching through the internet and found out that this is exactly what email harvesting programs do. Now, I know they are mainly used for spamming purposes, but this time, it's for a legit reason. There's this excerpt from wikipedia concering the legality of it.
In The United States of America, the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 [3] made it illegal to initiate e-mail to a recipient where 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.
* Using an automated means to extract electronic mail addresses 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.
* Using an automated means that generates possible electronic mail addresses by combining names, letters, or numbers into numerous permutations.
* Using an automated means to extract electronic mail addresses 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.
But, I don't really understand what that second bullet point is saying. Is it saying that it's legal if I'm doing it for non-spamming purposes?
As for the program itself, I found this website that seems to provide what I want to do. Is it legit?
Should he use that program? Or should he just man up and tediously go through each of those links?
Jeice on
0
Posts
The TDSB owns a website with email address on it.
The TDSB asked your friend to collect these email addresses from their website.
No this is not illegal. I can't speak to the pros and cons of that particular piece of software; but automating this process cannot possibly be illegal.
well that's not necessarily true
that law the OP quoted shows that sometimes it IS illegal
and a lot of phone dialers are illegal I think? and they just automate calling hundreds of phone numbers
Using a script to gather your organization's email addresses from your own website is not illegal; not in any sane country.
The law makes it illegal to send unsolicited emails to people under X circumstances. The collection methods detailed there are not defined as crimes by themselves. He's not spamming anyone, or making a list to spam anyone. He's just making a list.
* Honestly though, what? I checked 10 of those at random, all @tdsb.on.ca; your friend's employer. Surely there's an easier way to collect these addresses?
2) doesn't apply here, so it's not illegal.
I assume they will after he's done, lol.
If he's working for the tsdb, why don't they already have these? The page is using ASP, and each link is most likely being generated by querying a database that contains all the information for each school. So they should be able to just query that database to get just the emails.
Either we're not getting the full story, or someone at tsdb is clueless. Just have your friend ask to be put in touch with IT or whoever maintains the website, and he should be able to have a full list of emails put together in a single query.