Electronic Arts is inviting spamtraps to stand up and fight in ME3. The ESP is CheetahMail, and the spamtrap ceased to exist as a real email address about 10 years prior to the release of the game.
Last November I blogged about a spamtrap hit by Peebles, a U.S.-based retailer of clothing and accessories. Today Peebles hit that spamtrap again with an email that just *might* be an opt-in confirmation, although the language does not make that clear. The ESP is CheetahMail, a division of Experian.
Budget Mobile, a French mobile phone service, today sent a bulk email advertisement to an email address that has not been live for a couple of years. The email appeared to lack an unsubscribe option, although my French is rudimentary and I did not want to retrieve images to check whether it was included in them. The ESP is Cheetahmail, a subsidiary of Experian.
After previously spamming one of my spamtraps, J.C. Penney (a major U.S.-based department store) is sending phony “opt-in” confirmation emails. These emails have a Subject that reads, “Open To Confirm Your Email! EVERYTHING CHANGES 2.1.12”. In other words, anybody who is careless or curious enough to open this email in any normal email program that does not block images is automatically “confirmed” on the J. C. Penney list whether they intended to confirm or not. (“Gotcha!”) :/ The ESP is Cheetahmail, a division of Experian.
Today Ben Isaacson, the deliverability and compliance manager at Cheetahmail, posted a blog on the Cheetahmail web site, “A CheetahMail New Years’ Resolution: Giving Up Email Append”.
High-tech jobs board Dice, an institution in Silicon Valley and other high-tech centers, is sending bulk email advertisements to an email address that has not belonged to a real person since 2005. This email address has not previously received email from Dice since it completed its timeout period and was re-enabled as a spamtrap. Its previous owner also reports that he never posted a resume on Dice nor signed up to receive any sort of email from Dice. Either somebody made a typo or maliciously subscribed this email address on the Dice web site, or Dice purchased a list. The ESP is Cheetahmail, a subsidiary of Experian.
S.C. Johnson, a U.S.-based household products company known to every small child (and everybody else) in the United States, is sending bulk emails to email addresses that have not been live for many years. These email addresses receive no legitimate email. Until today, they have received no email from S.C. Johnson. So why are these email addresses suddenly getting email from this company? One spamtrap hit might be a typo; several usually means a purchased list. The ESP is Cheetahmail, a subsidiary of Experian.
Good Sam Club, a subsidiary of outdoor equipment and supply retailer Camping World, is sending bulk emails to an email address that was closed in 2007. This email address has not received email from either Good Sam Club or Camping World since it passed its timeout period and was re-enabled as a spamtrap, almost two years ago. Nonetheless, the email asserts that the spamtrap opted in to receive emails from Good Sam Club, and offers the recipient a URL to renew his or her membership in the Good Sam Club. So how did this email address, which does not belong to a Good Sam Club member, get on Good Sam Club’s list? The ESP is Cheetahmail, a subsidiary of Experian.
American Eagle Outfitters, a U.S.-based clothing company, is sending advertising emails to an email address that was closed before 2008. This email address was reactivated as a spamtrap in mid-2010 after it passed its timeout period. It has not received email from this sender since that time. The ESP is Cheetahmail, a subsidiary of Experian.
Winetasting.com sounds like a really interesting website. It’s a shame that the first time I have heard of them appears to be because they sent me spam. That is pretty uncool; I like wine and buy it every now and again. But I won’t buy anything from anybody who sends me spam. How did they come to have my email address? I suspect the purchased a list. This address was one that I used on some other online store a couple of years ago. The ESP in this case is Cheetahmail.