We are a small company and would like to send an email to around 500
people at one time using mail merge in Microsoft Word.  This way, each
person would only see his/her name in the "To:" line.  Is this
considered spam and would we get in trouble for it (e.g. lawsuits or
being blocked on the Internet) based on any state, federal, or pending
laws/regulations?  Our company is incorporated in New York State, but
we will be sending it from Georgia.  We received their email addresses
from an industrial directory.  We've already looked at
www.spamlaws.com & www.emailabuse.org and didn't see any existing
federal laws or NY or GA laws on the matter.  However, we heard
contradicting information from another company that was sued for doing
a similar thing.  We would like the most definitive, most current &
up-to-date information just to be sure we won't get in trouble.  Thank
you!

Regardless of the legal opinion, if I was to get unsolicited email
from a company that was trying to sell me something _I_ would consider
it to be spam. In all likelyhood, I would immediately delete it
without reading, and I can guarantee that I would not purchase from
the company involved. Spam might not be illegal, but I don't consider
it to be an effective advertising tool, and would not recommend any
reputable company engage in it.

I automatically boycott the products of any company that emails me
information I have not requested, and that includes companies from
whom I have purchased in the past if I have not positively requested
to receive updates from them.

To answer part of your question:

"Is this considered spam ... ?"

Yes, spam is Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE) and what you
are proposing would be unsolicited (they didn't ask for it)
and of what would be assumed to be commercial nature and it
would be email.

I am a former owner of an ISP and if you did what you are
proposing, I would have (and my company's contract with you
would have stated such) considered it spam.

The publishers of the industrial directory might not be happy
that you sourced the email addresses from their publication
an used them as such either.

Some things might be legal, but that doesn't make them right.
Trust me, don't do the emailing.

Looking Forward, denco-ga