Is it a "pawn" though? Your email address in their database does not necessarily mean your security has been compromised - just that your on a spam list somewhere?
Sometimes getting on these lists is fairly harmless by itself, but they can end up leaking a large amount of data about some people.
Just knowing that an email address is used and active is a start, but combine that with other information that could be grabbed like rough location data, IP address information, knowledge that the email was associated with that service, active usage dates, and more can end up being much worse.