Jan
30

Suomalainen Kirjakauppa: Hell bent on using bad data

Suomalainen Kirjakauppa (www, biz reg), one of Finland’s largest bookstores (and oldest registered businesses) has been terminated previously by a Finnish ESP, and by a Swedish ESP operating in Finland, both for the use of bad data that hit spamtraps and landed their IPs onto blocklists. It is very likely that they aren’t deliberately spamming B2C (though it must be said that B2B spam that is guaranteed to be spam has been seen from them too), but by steadfastly refusing to clean bad/old/bad and old data from their legitimately acquired B2C lists, they have degenerated into spammers.

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Jan
23

Panic Marketing again

Panic Marketing, the subject of the now defunct SBL168245, have been lying low for a bit, but are active again. And were noticed by the right people.

Jan
19

QVC: Verifying Email Addresses that Never Responded to Email

Today video and e-commerce retailer QVC sent what appears to be a re-engagement or verification email to a pristine spamtrap. The spamtrap probably got onto QVC’s list because the user typoed the real email address when subscribing. The email indicates that the user has not responded to emails “recently”, and asks for the user to indicate whether they want to stay on QVC’s list. The ESP is Cheetahmail, a subsidiary of Experian.

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Jan
18

Target Spams Email Appended List with Data Breach Notice

U.S.-based retailer Target, which recently suffered a massive data breach, has responded to that breach by hiring an email appender to append scraped email addresses (some of them closed for over a decade) to their customer list. Target then spammed that appended list over the past few days. The ESP is Epsilon, via its subsidiary Bigfoot Interactive.

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Jan
15

Justin Perintä Oy: Acc Consulting Oy expanding into debt collection, and spamming

The people behind Acc Consulting Oy appear to have set up a new business, Justin Perintä Oy (www, biz reg, people responsible), to branch into debt collection, and predictably, started using their time-honoured methods to advertise their services.

As usual, their Internet service providers, Saunalahti (a d/b/a of Elisa Plc), Kotisivut.com, and Nebula are doing their damnedest to turn a blind eye.

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Jan
14

Spam from Software Outsourcing Company BairesDev

In early December 2013, the Denver Code Monkey posted a blog note about this spammer in the spammer section of his blog. Ignacio de Marco, apparently of BairesDev LLC, San Francisco / Argentina had been spamming him. We confirm – this happened to me too.

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Jan
08

Elfcloud: Spam-advertised “secure cloud storage” for Finnish businesses

Elfcloud (www), a service operated by elfconsulting oy (biz reg, responsible people) is advertising its services through spam.

Would you buy “secure” services from, or trust your data to, somebody who respects your privacy enough to reach into your pocket for their advertising budget without your knowledge or consent?
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Dec
09

Canada Announces Go-Live Date for CASL Anti-Spam Law

In early December 2013 the Canadian government announced that the 2010 Canadian Anti-Spam Law (CASL) will go into effect on July 1, 2014. Although this law covers considerably more ground than just unsolicited bulk email (spam), it is very good news for those who fight spam, and especially good news for those of us who fight spam by otherwise legitimate companies. The reason? CASL requires (with some limited exceptions) that recipients of bulk email give explicit consent to receive the email before it is sent. In other words, CASL requires opt-in. Unlike the U.S. CAN-SPAM law and many other laws in many other countries, CASL actually forbids most spam.

CASL also has teeth. Violations of the CASL opt-in requirement can draw fines as high as $10 million Canadian per infringing email. By all appearances, the Canadian government agencies responsible for enforcement of CASL are prepared to enforce the law vigorously.

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Dec
07

NASA JPL: When the Same Email is Both Solicited and Spam (Take #2)

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA JPL) sent me a solicited, much-desired, and eagerly read bulk email today. The organization also spammed a half dozen email addresses at domains that closed in 2005 and earlier. I don’t doubt that the original owners of those email addresses subscribed, probably sometime in the 1990s. Email addresses (unlike diamonds) are not forever. The ESP is IContact.

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Dec
06

The 1776 Coalition: Spamming a Decade-Closed Spamtrap

The 1776 Coalition, which appears on the face of things to be a Tea Party-affiliated conservative action group but whose focus is on marketing rather than politics, today spammed an email address that was closed in 2005. The email claims that the email address was added to their list on August 26, 2013. Either a malicious subscriber put this email address into the web form on this organization’s web site, and the organization failed to validate and confirm the email address before adding it to their list, or the organization is using a purchased or other third-party list. The ESP is BlueHornet, a division of Digital River.

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