Question : Any free email harvesting programs?

I wonder if there are any downloadable programs which can be used to gather a few email address from targeted audiences?

How do people do this short of buying some list?

thanks.

Answer : Any free email harvesting programs?

These "harvesters" exist, and they're pretty inexpensive too. But, to use the data gained from such a harvester is illegal and considered SPAM since you don't have an existing business relationship with the owners of the e-mail addresses.

If you were one of those big-time scammers that the FTC goes after, e.g., your spam bilks millions of consumers out of money or creates so much junk email that AOL, Google, Microsoft, or any of the top ISP providers take action against you.

So, if the fear of lawsuits don't bother you, consider that if you are fined.. it's about $11,000 USD per email offense. If you sell this e-mail data to a client and that client uses the email data for spam broadcasts; BOTH of you are legally liable for that spam.. at least in the USA.