Campanile, a UK-based hotel and restaurant chain that is owned by French hotelier Louvre Hotels Group, about two weeks ago started sending bulk email advertisements to an email address that was closed in 2002. The ESP is Pure 360, aka PureSender.
Entertainment Weekly, a widely-read U.S.-based magazine about the entertainment industry published by Time, Inc., today sent a subscription offer to what it evidently believes is a former subscriber. The email address to which it was sent has not been live for over seven years. The ESP is Acxiom Digital.
Time Europe recently started to send their “Weekly Edition” summaries of stories to an email address at my employer that was closed before I started to work there. I re-enabled it in 2010 as a spamtrap. I do not doubt that many people have asked for the attached email, but this email address did not ask for any bulk email after 2001. The ESP is CheetahMail.
Somebody better grab a fire extinguisher, because Steve Corsi is on fire. I’m not sure who Steve Corsi is, but GamedayNetwork.com is so eager to tell everyone about this that they seem to have purchased a list containing many spamtrap addresses. I’m seeing copies of this mailing to multiple addresses, including both never-valid addresses and addresses that have been dead for more than 10 years.
The ESP is SimplyCast.
The text version of the message was empty except for a couple of “click here” links. I did not load or include the HTML as I did not want to falsely register image load activity to imply that my spamtrap addresses were alive.
This is so far off the scale of mainsleaze it’s questionable if it bears to be mentioned here. But it was sent through a legitimate ESP (Sendgrid), and there appears to be a connection to a legitimate Finnish business, however concealed.
Today Parenting.com, a web site with information for parents of babies and toddlers, for the first time sent bulk email to a spamtrap that has been dead for over a decade. The web site is owned and operated by Parenting magazine, which belongs to consumer publication company Bonnier Corporation. The ESP is SilverPop.
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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