MainSleaze

FictionCity.net, a social networking site for artists, is sending bulk email to a personal email address of mine that has been closed for over nine years, via ESP SendGrid. Since this email address has belonged to me since it was created and never existed prior to that, I *know* that I never requested this email or any email from this site. Somebody (probably not FictionCity.net) scraped the web or old Usenet archives to find this email address. FictionCity.net almost certainly purchased a list.

NOTE: Social networking sites do not operate under special privileges where email is concerned. If they send email, either directly or via their customers, from their servers or their ESP account to email addresses that did not request that email, they are spamming. Those who do not use social networking sites at all, and those who limit the number of these sites that they use (almost everybody), find it annoying to be pestered by a company or people that they do not know to join a social network when they are not already a member. Whether FictionCity.net is spamming directly, or is allowing customers to spam on its behalf, may matter to them, but it doesn’t to me. They need to stop. NOW.

Sending IP: 208.115.214.59

Spam Sample:

Actual Headers:

Received: from o1.email.getitwithme.com (o1.email.getitwithme.com [208.115.214.59])
        by <xxx> (Postfix) with SMTP id <xxx>
        for <xxx>; Sun, 23 Oct 2011 19:xx:xx -0700 (PDT)
DKIM-Signature: <xxx>
DomainKey-Signature: <xxx>
Received: by 10.8.<xxx>.<xxx> with SMTP id <xxx>
        Sun, 23 Oct 2011 21:xx:xx -0500 (CDT)
Received: from 127.0.0.1 (unknown [mi10])
        by mi10 (SG) with ESMTP id <xxx>
        for <xxx>; Sun, 23 Oct 2011 21:xx:xx -0500 (CST)
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
        boundary="===============<xxx>=="
MIME-Version: 1.0
From: "Info FictionCity.NET" <info@fictioncitymail.net>
To: <xxx>
Reply-To: info@fictioncity.net
Subject: FictionCity.NET - Te invitamos a Unirte a la Red Global Social de
        Artistas! - We invite you to Join the Global Social Network for
        Artists!
Message-ID: <<xxx>@mf<xxx>.sendgrid.net>
Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2011 21:xx:xx -0500 (CDT)
X-Sendgrid-EID: <xxx>
X-Sendgrid-ID: <xxx>
Sender: Info FictionCity.NET <info=fictioncitymail.net@sendgrid.me>
list-unsubscribe: <xxx>

Readable Email:

From: Info FictionCity.NET <info@fictioncitymail.net>
To: <xxx>
Subject: FictionCity.NET – Te invitamos a Unirte a la Red Global Social de
        Artistas! – We invite you to Join the Global Social Network for
        Artists!
Reply-To: info@fictioncity.net

Email not displaying correctly? View it (http://sendgrid.com/wf/webmail?<xxx> ) in your browser

We invite you to Join FictionCity.NET, the Global Social Network for Artists! You can upload your work to show your talent to organizations and artists. Sign up FictionCity.NET today!

Queremos invitarte a que te Unas a la Red Social Global de Artistas! Podrais subir tus trabajos y obras para que organizaciones y artistas conozcan tu talento. Registrate en FictionCity.NET!

To unsubscribe please click here (http://<xxx>.sendgrid.org/wf/unsubscribe?<xxx> )
Info FictionCity.NET