Earlier quoted context omitted.
So you are saying these bot accounts have opted in to receiving emails? You don't validate the email when someone signs up?
The site terms and conditions are displayed very publicaly and accessible to anyone who cares to read them. By entering your email address you are opting-in for transaction related emails, including new order confirmations, shipment notifications, and yes cart reminders. It's spelled out for you. It's the same for almost every ecommerce site. That's different than marketing emails, which require a separate explicit o…
The whole concept of a dark pattern is about UX choices that lead people to agree to things that they don't actually want; it isn't about whether you break your TOS or not.
I am saying, I think that if you asked people point blank "do you want websites to email you reminders if you leave something in the cart?", most people (myself included) would say, "no, I don't want to get that email"
You can put whatever you want in the TOS, but it doesn't mean users like it, and a user agreeing to something doesn't mean they like all the things they are agreeing to.
Whether it is "on me" or not, it is still a dark pattern.
Also, as a user entering my email, I am not promising you that I will always accept email to that address from you. If you try to send me email and I reject it, that is 'on you' to deal with what that rejection does to your spam scores.