I don't think it's spam when a subscriber chooses which categories of your site they want to receive in a newsletter...
This was a recruitment firm letting their subscribers pick the categories of jobs they receive in their newsletter. I think this is anything but spam. Cuts out the things they aren't interested in and makes sure they only receive jobs relevant to their search.
Other companies using the service are doing similar - sending relevant articles to subsets of their audience - not even for commercial purposes. We have educational institutes using the service for sending information to students.
Maybe it was the word automation that concerned you in this but I think done correctly it can be a big benefit for subscribers and content producers.
