MainSleaze

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.

As my spamtrap had not previously received email from Parenting.com, I see two ways that this could have happened: a typo, or a purchased list. A typo is not a huge issue, but companies can avoid those by confirming subscriptions. Many decline to do so because users often do not confirm, which puts the costs of errors onto innocent third party recipients who did not ask to receive the email. Purchasing lists is deliberate spam: no purchased list can ever be opt-in.

Sending IP: 208.85.49.195

Spam Sample:

Actual Headers:

Received: from mail5107.email.parenting.com (mail5107.email.parenting.com [208.85.49.195])
        by <xxx> (Postfix) with ESMTP id <xxx>
        for <xxx>; Fri, 27 Jul 2012 17:xx:xx -0000 (UT)
DKIM-Signature: <xxx>
DomainKey-Signature: <xxx>
Received: by mail5107.email.parenting.com (PowerMTA(TM) v3.5r16) id <xxx> 
        for <xxx>; Fri, 27 Jul 2012 17:xx:xx +0000 
        (envelope-from <v-<xxx>@bounce.email.parenting.com>)
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2012 17:xx:xx +0000 (GMT)
From: "Parenting.com" <newsletter@email.parenting.com>
Reply-To: newsletter@email.parenting.com
To: <xxx>
Message-ID: <<xxx>.>
Subject: How to Raise an Olympian
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
        boundary="<xxx>"
x-mid: <xxx>
x-job: <xxx>
x-orgId: <xxx>
X-CSA-Complaints: whitelist-complaints@eco.de
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:v-<xxx>@bounce.email.parenting.com?subject=Unsubscribe>

Readable Email:

From: Parenting.com <newsletter@email.parenting.com>
To: <spamtrap>
Subject: How to Raise an Olympian
Reply-To: newsletter@email.parenting.com

View this email online:
http://links.email.parenting.com/servlet/MailView?<xxx>
—————————-
Parenting Weekly Newsletter
www.parenting.com
July 27, 2012
—————————-
Parenting Advice from Olympic Parents
http://links.email.parenting.com/ctt?<xxx>

Of course it doesn’t matter if your kids bring home the gold, or just a participation medal from Little League. But these parents of Olympians past and present can give you great tips on how to support your kids, no matter what they do.

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