Political Spam Today: Donate! (Continued…)

This *weekend* the presidential campaigns doubled down on spam, as an FEC deadline at the end of September crept up upon them. Eight spams, all from one of the presidential campaigns or a Democratic Party campaign committee. One single spamtrap received copies of six of these eight spams. I’m not the typical email recipient, but if I had received that many begging emails from a candidate that I supported, I’d be tempted to vote for his opponent.

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Political Spam Today: Donate! Donate! Donate!

Today the presidential campaigns doubled down on spam, begging their supporters to donate as much as they could in advance of an FEC deadline at the end of September. *Nine* spams, all from one of the presidential campaigns or a Democratic Party campaign committee. (While the Romney campaign is hitting plenty of spamtraps, the Republican party counterparts to the Democratic Senatorial and Congressional Campaign Committees are either not sending as much spam or have managed to avoid my spamtraps.) Notable highlights include a double-header in the DSCC’s Spamming Senator of the Day Contest (Harry Reid and John Kerry) and thanks from First Lady Michelle Obama for a contribution — to a spamtrap that hasn’t been live for years and can’t have contributed any money to any candidate.

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Political Spam Today: Bill Clinton and Ann Romney Get Into the Act

Nobody took today off, probably because it’s the end of the quarter for FEC reporting. :/ Bill Clinton bright and early, followed by Romney campaign deputy digital director Abe Adams, Senator Al Franken, and Ann Romney. And several other groups. <sigh>

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Political Spam Today: Now Obama and Boxer Pile On…

Today’s take: several spamtrap hits from President Barack Obama, with his name front and center in the From header, four spamtrap hits from Senator Barbara Boxer, a few spams from SuperPACs, and a single spam from a peace activist group that only creeps into the category of political spam because it expresses support for a few candidates. If somebody had planned this to remind me that both political campaigns are running less-than-opt-in mailing lists, they could not have done a better job. (The Romney campaign appears to have taken the day off.)

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Political Spam Today: Romney and Warren Pile On….

Today’s spam take: seven spam emails from one presidential campaign, one senatorial campaign, and our old friends the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). The DSCC, DCCC, and MittRomney.com are really pumping it out today. :/ Mailings from the DSCC, DCCC, and ElizabethWarren.com are blocked by SpamCop, a major blocklist. So far MittRomney.com has escaped listing on any widely-used blacklists, but if the spamtrap hits continue at this rate, that won’t last.

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Political Spam Today: Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians Alike

I admit it. I’ve been hesitant to talk about the flood of political spam that is hitting my spamtraps because there’s so much of it that I don’t know where to start. But the situation is crazy and getting worse by the day. So welcome to the new Political Spam Today report on the MainSleaze blog.

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A Tale of Two Presidential Campaigns….

A few months ago I blogged about spam from U.S. President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. That spam has continued to arrive like clockwork. Today Mitt Romney’s campaign did the same thing — it sent email for the first time to a spamtrap that was closed in 2003. The Obama campaign’s mailings are sent through Blue State Digital. The Romney campaign is mailing through BlueHornet, a division of Digital River.

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Common Good: Emailing an E-Pended Spamtrap

Common Good, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization that is promoting reforms to legal and governmental processes, just sent email for the first time to a spamtrap that was closed in 2004. The email refers to the owner of that spamtrap address by a plausible but incorrect name, which suggests an e-pended email address. The ESP is Blue State Digital.

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Barack Obama: When the Same Email is Both Solicited and Spam

The re-election campaign of U.S. President Barack Obama sent a bulk email today to two email addresses of mine. One of those email addresses was subscribed to that list by me a couple of months ago, so that I could keep current on election news. (During campaign seasons I usually subscribe an email address to most candidates’ lists to see what they have to say, and how they handle their lists.) The other is a spamtrap that, if it ever belonged to a real person, was closed no later than 2005. Both of these emails were sent from the same IP and are otherwise identical. The ESP is Blue State Digital.

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Fight for the Future: Repurposing Contact Email Addresses

Fight for the Future, a newly-formed nonprofit group that opposes the SOPA and PIPA antipiracy legislation currently under consideration in the U.S. Congress and that runs the sopastrike.com web site, is sending bulk email to email addresses that were entered into that web site as contact email addresses in case there was a problem with the user’s blacked-out web site or some other technical issue. The bulk email makes no claim to opt-in, although it offers an opt-out link. The ESP is Blue State Digital.

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