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Man oh man, there are a lot of (very bad) armchair lawyers on HN.

You might consider AirBnB's actions unethical, but they certainly aren't illegal - which would be obvious to anyone who bothered reading the CAN-SPAM wikipedia page. It's not illegal to violate Craigslist's TOS, and AFAICT the "spam" messages were sent from a legitimate Gmail account.

For those of you claiming "I'd rather be poor than violate craigslist's terms of service": Bullshit.

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I'm not a lawyer but I am an anti-spam expert.

They most certainly are illegal. They are unsolicited advertising (which is fine under CAN-SPAM, sadly), and contain none of the requirements of CAN-SPAM - a legitimate business address, and a clear unsubscribe link.

Just because they come from gmail accounts does not exempt AirBnB from the law.

It's commercial email 100%. Probably a fake sender name (illegal), against gmail ToS, against CL ToS and no unsubscribe link and no one even subscribed in the first place. 100% against CAN-SPAM.

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