Fonecta “almost” forced to stop selling crappy B2B email addresses
A few days ago, somebody tweeted a copy of a letter Fonecta, the Finnish spammer and list vendor, had sent to its customers. The matter also made news in Finnish IT press (Tietoviikko).
A copy of the letter and a translation are included below.
This may have been prompted by the fact that Koodiviidakko (a Finnish ESP) found all of its outbound IP addresses listed on the Spamhaus SBL as a result of sending to addresses obtained from Fonecta. As if Fonecta still being listed on the SBL wasn’t enough on its own…
In a surprising twist, the CEO of Koodiviidakko was personally able to verify the previously reported illegal address generation / e-pending practices of Fonecta (that are also against the B2B email marketing best practices document that Fonecta itself participated in writing) because he habitually uses his middle name and was not amused to find “first.last@domain.name” for his “real” first name in registers used by their own customers. The address did not, and still does not, exist. I suggested it that they might turn it into a spamtrap. 😀
Updates Jun 16:
- Koodiviidakko has commented on the matter and is now promoting a 100% opt-in policy for bulk/commercial email. Congratulations and thank you.
- Another information provider, JM-Tieto, has also released a statement on the matter.
Dear customer
According to Finnish legislation, electronic marketing to business decisionmakers does not require permission when the product or service being marketed has to do with the person or his/her duties or areas of responsibility at work. International parties who monitor email traffic are however taking a stance that is not in line with Finnish legislation and consider all unsolicited email marketing junk mail. Said parties have caused difficulties to the operations of Fonecta and several other companies in the market who practice email marketing. All companies that use B2B registers obtained from other parties stand to be harmed by international parties. Because of this, the email addresses of B2B decisionmakers will become unavailable in Fonecta’s Kohdistamiskone service until further notice.
If you wish, you may order the email addresses you need from Fonecta and we will provide the service to you. Email marketing to B2B decisionmakers must be strictly targeted and with content that is relevant to the target group.
The problem is not limited to Fonecta or Finland but affects all of Europe. Fonecta is in negotiations with international parties and we are trying to find a solution that would be the best way forward for all parties and would benefit all businesses in the branch. We will also ensure the quality of our registers by critically reviewing the entire email address database.
We are sorry for the situation and will keep you up to date as new information appears. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact our customer service at tel. 020-4422 831 or your own contact person.
Best regards,
