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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Aug
30

Keekoo: Dodging a Bullet by Confirming a List

Keekoo, a U.S.-based members-only pregnancy and baby supplies service, today sent over a dozen bulk emails to my spamtraps. Keekoo appears to have bought another company, AllAboutTheBaby.com. Fortunately, Keekoo sent confirmation requests instead of welcome messages to that company’s list: users must respond to the messages to stay on the list. The ESP is IContact, which does not tolerate spam on its network and might well have advised Keekoo to confirm the list.

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Jun
05

AwesomePennyStocks.com: Stock-Pumping Spam via an ESP :(

Stock-promotion web site AwesomePennyStocks.com, which reportedly has existed under many other names in the past, is sending bulk email to an email address that has never existed. The ESP is IContact.

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May
16

Jon Bruning: Asking a Spamtrap for its Vote

For some months the campaign of Jon Bruning, a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey, has been sending bulk email to an email address that was closed in 2007. The sending ESP is IContact.

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May
09

London Theater Direct Wants an Audience

They appear to think that spamming a purchased list will provide them with one. Unfortunately, they have spammed several overworked engineers at my company, a retired nurse who lives several hundred miles north and hates to travel, and an exhausted new father in Leeds (me), along with a few actual spamtraps. If they thought that they were getting a list of London area residents, they were scammed. The ESP was IContact.

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Apr
25

MyDreamSportsBiz.com: Selling Dreams to an Email Address that Never Existed

MyDreamSportsBiz.com, a web portal that markets “income opportunities” for sports fans, is sending bulk email to an email address that has never existed. I suppose there’s an odd sort of symmetry in selling dreams to a non-existent sports fan…. The sending ESP is IContact.

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Apr
03

Sheldon Container: Reconfirming an Outdated List! :) :) :) :) :)

Sheldon Container, a Houston, Texas company that sells industrial packing supplies, today hit my spamtraps, not with spam, but with a genuine, opt-in permission pass. A sample is below. The ESP is IContact.

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Mar
13

Pacific Lodging Supply: Selling Pool Supplies to Spamtraps

Pacific Lodging Supply, a California-based company that sells hospitality supplies to hotels and motels, is sending bulk email to two spamtraps. Neither of these spamtraps has previously received email from this company, so in the absence of two typoed email addresses (unlikely), I think that they probably purchased a list. The sending ESP is IContact.

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Feb
21

Jon Bruning: Campaigning to a Spamtrap?

Jon Bruning, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in the state of Nebraska, is sending bulk email notices to an email address that was closed in 2004. The email address appears to have belonged to a small company that went bankrupt many years ago, and to have been used to manage that company’s ISP service. It does not appear to have been a personal email address for anybody. The ESP is IContact.

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Jan
23

Pastor Melissa Scott: Preaching to a Spamtrap

Pastor Melissa Scott, minister of Faith Center in Glendale, California, is sending bulk email advertisements to an email address that was closed in 2005. The email address in question began receiving email from Pastor Scott only a few months ago, so the cause is probably either an unconfirmed web form subscription, or a purchased list. The sending ESP is IContact.

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