You were satisfied with with empty calories? That's what I would consider this with the information you provided. Did the company you sent this removal request a) respond, b) honor your request? If no, then what you did was essentially waste your time. If they did, why not add that information to your post?
A) if more people make a fuss about their email getting sold the way OP did, we can still salvage something out of the situation
B) results/outcomes are not the only reason people why should do things. After all, we lionize those Russians protesting the Ukraine invasion knowing nothing will come out of it at a personal level.
I can see where you're coming from, but I disagree with shortsighted. Pessimistic maybe. I see this kind of messaging to a company doing shady things similar to clicking the unsubscribe link in emails. It's just confirming the message was read by a human, and validates the email address as a good target. Even if you send the cease email from a different address, you've just given them a new address to harvest.
This is bad IMO, why should individuals have to rectify something a company did? All it does is encourage bad behavior because I'm sure that the still comes out ahead if even 10% (being generous) did the above.
Society would be way better if we made a collective action to lobby our Congress to change the laws and make it illegal. Tech has been unregulated for far too long and there's too many bad actors taking advantage of this.
"Each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $46,517, so non-compliance can be costly." I'm not sure how much of that can be collected by the recipient.
