Technically, running an email service is a "server" (but then, so is a game that let's players in the next room join you, but I digress), but few ISPs would complain about it. Either you get your email from the mail server outside your system, it comes to your local server. Both ways, the data is getting to your local network.

Many ISPs (including my newest one) block port 25 (SMTP port, the email server port) because there are many malware programs that exploit this, and most people don't need port 25. Typically, you can call them up and have them unblock port 25 for you (that's what I did). That pretty much settles the TOS issue at the same time (if it's a violation that they're worried about, they wonn't unblock it for you).

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