U.S. banking giant Citibank yesterday sent bulk email about “thank you” rewards points to a new spamtrap that has been dead for over eight years. The email contained a name and the last four digits of a credit card number. As with previous Citibank bulk emails that I have seen and blogged about, the ESP is Epsilon Interactive via its ESP Bigfoot Interactive.
Toshiba America’s consumer and small business direct sales portal Toshiba Direct is sending bulk email to yet another email address that did not request it. Toshiba appears to be spamming non-opted-in email addresses: possibly a very old customer list that has not been properly maintained, possibly a purchased or epended list, or possibly a combination of both. The ESP is once again Responsys.
U.S. and global telecommunications giant Verizon just sent an advertising email to a spamtrap that was closed in 2003. This spamtrap has not previously heard from Verizon. As the advertisement urges the spamtrap to switch to Verizon from (presumably) another telephone and Internet service, this cannot be email to a customer. The email also makes no claim to be opt-in. The ESP is Sendgrid, whose authorized use policy explicitly requires that bulk email sent through their service be opt-in only.
Panic Marketing Oy (see biz reg), who are an old acquaintance here, are spamming natural persons whose addresses they confess to having harvested from “public sources on the Internet” with ads for cell phones and plans from Elisa, who used to be known as Helsinki Telephone Co. However, the sender and the beneficiary are not identified in the message. The apparent sender domain, which also hosts the unsub facility, is registered through Domains by Proxy. How much more can you fail?
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SH-Group Oy, also doing business as Data Media Gazelle, under the domain name kuriero.fi, is spamming addresses found on “public Internet pages and Fonecta Kohdistamiskone B2B” with ads for their spamming service. How anybody bothers setting up one in this day and age is beyond me. I wish you all could read their press release (only in Finnish), it’s got practically every item in Rhyolite Software’s excellent Spam Is That Which We Don’t Do list. I particularly like the argument that apparently spam is environmentally friendly.
GodVine, a web portal for nondenominational Protestant Evangelical Christians that focuses on contemporary Christian Music (CCM) and videos, today sent an emailed newsletter to an email address that subscribed on Wednesday of this week. Problem is, the email address has not been live for many years; it is one of my spamtraps. The ESP is AWeber, a reputable email marketing firm with a reputation as a “white hat” — a good company that does not tolerate spam — in the antispam community.
The American Kennel Club (AKC), which manages dog breed registries in the United States and provides services to breeders and dog owners, just sent a bulk email to two spamtraps urging that the alleged owners of those spamtraps sign a petition. The ESP is SilverPop.
Metromode Media, an online portal for business and life in southeastern Michigan, just sent an advertising email to a role address at a domain that closed in 2002. The role address, when live, was used to report criminal abuse activities by users of the domain. The ESP is Vertical Response.