The United States’ Direct Marketing Association (or DMA) spammed what appears to have been a purchased list yesterday morning. The email claims that the recipients of the email had expressed interest in the DMA, but it was sent to email addresses that never existed and were not likely typos. The ESP is Yesmail, a division of information broker Infogroup.
Blancoa Oy (www, biz reg, responsible people) is spamming to sell temporary office space to spamtraps. This is not surprising because one of the people (possibly the only person) behind this is Janne Laitinen, also known under the business aliases “Yrityspostia.fi” and “Suunnittelutoimisto Jotain…”. What is surprising is that the ESP is MailChimp, who have been informed.
A few days ago, somebody tweeted a copy of a letter Fonecta, the Finnish spammer and list vendor, had sent to its customers. The matter also made news in Finnish IT press (Tietoviikko).
A copy of the letter and a translation are included below.
Ooooo, and it makes me wonder. (LZ)
Nebula Oy (www, biz reg, responsible people, financial details), my favourite spam-support hosting provider here in Finland have taken the next step on their road to oblivion – by advertising their own services via spam. Their own Terms of Service might not amount to much, but this is decidedly a big step downward.
More to come later. Just pointing out that after being thrown off SendGrid for spamming, MAJ-Yhtiöt Oy (www, biz reg, responsible people) is now spamming from MailChimp’s infrastructure, along with their buddies at Optimointi Pro Oy (www, biz reg, responsible people). MailChimp has yet to respond in a sensible manner. MailChimp’s customer is suoraposti.com, aka Nettiapina Oy (www, biz reg, responsible people).
Over the past week or two, a new kid on the block has been announcing their arrival on the scene by spamming. A business formed over last Christmas, Fit Production Oy (ex M. Productions Scandinavia Oy, biz reg, founded by this person (Facebook link – don’t click if logged in to FB)) is advertising their new service, shape.fi in spam. Their spam service provider is the infamous VenaMail (MailCom Europe AB), who have a Spamhaus SBL listing to their name (and, one should hope, a few more on the way), and their ISP is Zoner, who some time back joined the ranks of the illustrious by complaining to the Data Protection Ombudsman about a public copy of a response of theirs (an unsatisfactory one of course) to a spam complaint (regarding spam they themselves have sent; so why am I even dreaming that Zoner would do anything about a spam-advertised site – they advertise their own services via spam, after all).
This spammer dude (www, other www, biz reg) made the fatal mistake of spamming via Creamailer, a Finnish white-hat ESP who subcontract with SendGrid, a US-based ESP who don’t like spammers, purchased lists etc. any better.
Displaying severe awesomeness, SendGrid’s automated systems reacted to this transmission and suspended the account before I had even sent in a complaint. A bit later, Creamailer indicated they had had a conversation with the customer, the customer indicated they had used a purchased list and would continue doing so, and so Creamailer showed them the door. I sense more AUP terminations in their immediate future.
Unfortunately it’s not an April Fool’s joke.
Pastelli Oy (www, biz reg) has been at it for a long time, my personal collection goes back at least a year.
Pastelli’s spam service provider is Scion Systems Oy (www, biz reg, spam service page). This business doesn’t bother informing the world of any Terms of Service, so supposedly spamming and the use of purchased lists are all just fine. They also offer the possibility of spamming their own B2B list.
I tried to inform the spam service provider about the previous incident (also involving a renovation company) in December 2012, but not having heard of RFC 2142, they don’t have an abuse@. Didn’t bother any further.
