MainSleaze

Keekoo, a U.S.-based members-only pregnancy and baby supplies service, today sent over a dozen bulk emails to my spamtraps. Keekoo appears to have bought another company, AllAboutTheBaby.com. Fortunately, Keekoo sent confirmation requests instead of welcome messages to that company’s list: users must respond to the messages to stay on the list. The ESP is IContact, which does not tolerate spam on its network and might well have advised Keekoo to confirm the list.

Keekoo dodged a bullet when it chose to confirm the list because the list could not have been a legitimate, opt-in list for any company. It is absolutely filthy with spamtraps and must contain one or more purchased or appended lists. A mailing that hits a dozen of my spamtraps inevitably hit a larger number of spamtraps at Spamhaus, Returnpath, other blacklists and reputation services, and large ISPs and companies. If these bulk emails had been standard marketing emails instead of confirmation requests, I would have expected multiple listings in major blacklists and direct blocks at companies and ISPs.

That didn’t happen, because Keekoo took the precaution of confirming subscriptions before adding these email addresses to its list. Whoever made the decision to do this deserves a bonus, and maybe a raise.

Sending IP: 216.27.86.179

Spam Sample:

Actual Headers:

Received: from drone122.ral.icpbounce.com (drone122.ral.icpbounce.com [216.27.86.179])
        by <xxx> (Postfix) with ESMTP id <xxx>
        for <xxx>; Wed, 29 Aug 2012 21:xx:xx -0000 (UT)
DKIM-Signature: <xxx>
Mime-Version: 1.0
From: "sales@keekoo.com" <sales@keekoo.com>
To: <xxx>
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2012 17:xx:xx -0400
Subject: All About the Baby Welcomes You to Keekoo!
Errors-To: bounces+<xxx>@icpbounce.com
List-Unsubscribe: <https://app.icontact.com/icp/listunsubscribe.php?<xxx>>
X-List-Unsubscribe: <https://app.icontact.com/icp/listunsubscribe.php?<xxx>>
X-Unsubscribe-Web: <https://app.icontact.com/icp/listunsubscribe.php?<xxx>>
X-ICPINFO:
X-Return-Path-Hint: bounces+<xxx>@icpbounce.com
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="<xxx>"
Message-ID: <<xxx>@drone122.ral.icpbounce.com>

Readable Email:

From: sales@keekoo.com <sales@keekoo.com>
To: <spamtrap>
Subject: All About the Baby Welcomes You to Keekoo!

Confirm your subscription and get up to 90% OFF your next order [1]all about the BABY

The reason you’re hearing from us is because you signed up for “AllAboutTheBaby.com”.

Please confirm you would like to stay on our mailing list and receive:

* Up to 90% off Baby, Maternity & Nursing Products on keekoo.com
* Freebies, Specials, Gifts and Promotions from our Keeko Partners

If you do not confirm, you will not receive email from us again.