Sony Mobile: MASSIVE Spam Run This Week
Sometime last week Sony Mobile, the cell phone subsidiary of Sony Corporation, started spamming several of my spamtraps, some of them email addresses that have been closed for years, and some email addressees that never existed at all. The spam dribbled out, two or three per day, until today. Today they hit over two dozen spamtraps that they had not emailed previously. Their ESP is Acxiom Digital.
The spams were in many European languages, but none that I checked were in English. Another blogger on this site received what appears to be the same spam from Sony Mobile previously and commented about it here. What I am seeing cannot be explained except by a purchased list or several, and much dirtier purchased lists than a legitimate business would normally touch with a ten foot pole. Acxiom Digital is a reputable ESP, not normally party to mailings to such dirty lists. I wonder whether they are aware of just how badly their customer is behaving?
Sending IP: 209.11.164.62
Spam Sample:
Actual Headers:
Received: from client-1-62.delivery.net (client-1-62.delivery.net [209.11.164.62])
by <xxx> (Postfix) with ESMTP id <xxx>
for <xxx>; Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:xx:xx +0200 (EET)
DomainKey-Signature: <xxx>
DKIM-Signature: <xxx>
Received: from [192.168.xx.xx] ([192.168.xx.xx:xx] helo=<xxx>)
by <xxx> (envelope-from <news@sonymobileemail.com>)
(ecelerity 2.2.2.36 r(26875/<xxx>)) with ESMTP
id <xxx>; Wed, 21 Mar 2012 04:xx:xx -0700
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2012 04:xx:xx -0700 (PDT)
From: Sony Mobile <news@sonymobileemail.com>
Reply-to: news@sonymobileemail.com
To: <xxx>
Message-ID: <xxx>
Subject: O futuro dos smartphones ficou ainda melhor
Errors-to: news@sonymobileemail.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
X-eid: <xxx>
X-pid: <xxx>
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:news@sonymobileemail.com?subject=unsubscribe<xxx>>
Readable Email:
From: Sony Mobile <news@sonymobileemail.com>
To: <spamtrap>
Subject: O futuro dos smartphones ficou ainda melhor
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Caro/a Customer
O com prazer que informamos que a Sony Ericsson tornou-se na Sony Mobile Communications e é agora propriedade total da Sony, passando a fazer parte da Marca Sony. Desta forma, os smartphones Xperia(TM) passam a integrar a aliciante gama de produtos e serviços da Sony.Tal mudança não afectará o seu serviço ou garantia*, mas agora receberá o benefÃcio adicional de ter o mundo da Sony na ponta dos seus dedos, criando as melhores experiências de entretenimento num smartphone.
<removed>
Atentamente,
Steve Walker,
Director de Marketing de Sony Mobile Communications
*Tenha em atenção que poderão ocorrer algumas pequenas alterações aos termos e condições da sua conta, visto que todas as referências à Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications passam agora a Sony Mobile Communications. Para ver os mais recentes termos e condições, clique aqui. Para verificar, actualizar ou remover os seus dados, inicie sessão aqui.
This is on the radar at Acxiom Digital and the client has been notified as well. We’ll continue to stay on it until it is resolved. Thanks!
Thanks for letting us know, Mark. I was quite startled today to see the huge number of emails that they sent, after two weeks of emails. When I went back and looked at the emails for the past two weeks, I saw that they were to different spamtraps, and in a number of different languages. So while this appears to be targeted to Europeans, the types and number of spamtrap hits are quite unusual. (I rarely see this many.)
Apparently this was a legal communication from Sony, however I made sure they knew that sending to a list of this age is extremely risky and they need to consult with us before hand the next time they are obliged to deploy something of this nature. Thank you for being so patient, and I apologize on behalf of Sony for the issues this mailing has caused.
This appeared to be a merger announcement, so I suppose somebody somewhere might claim that it was legally necessary. However, sending bulk email to email addresses that are that many years old risks wide blacklisting by people who are unlikely to take the “legal” excuse seriously. I have to wonder if somebody is claiming that a marketing communication was legally required simply to get out from under an onslaught of criticism.
Not your fault, Mark. But please keep an eye on your customer. I suspect that somebody at Sony tried to put a fast one over on Acxiom and the rest of us. :/