This is so far off the scale of mainsleaze it’s questionable if it bears to be mentioned here. But it was sent through a legitimate ESP (Sendgrid), and there appears to be a connection to a legitimate Finnish business, however concealed.
U.S. and global telecommunications giant Verizon just sent an advertising email to a spamtrap that was closed in 2003. This spamtrap has not previously heard from Verizon. As the advertisement urges the spamtrap to switch to Verizon from (presumably) another telephone and Internet service, this cannot be email to a customer. The email also makes no claim to be opt-in. The ESP is Sendgrid, whose authorized use policy explicitly requires that bulk email sent through their service be opt-in only.
AutoMarke, a web-based retailer of automotive accessories for Russian customers, sent an advertising email to a spamtrap that, if it ever existed (which is doubtful), was closed in 2002. As best I know, this spamtrap has never heard from AutoMarke before. The ESP is Sendgrid, whose authorized use policy explicitly requires that bulk email sent through their service be opt-in only.
This issue has been resolved. The blog remains posted because blogs shouldn’t disappear, to make sure that Google and other search engines and archives get the update, and in hopes that other people can learn something from it and the comments. 🙂
Fight for the Future, a non-profit formed in late 2010, is spamming addresses that are very unlikely to have anything to do with U.S. politics anyway and that, if they’re real, stopped existing years before Fight for the Future was formed. The ESP is SendGrid. The realnames seem real enough, the addresses seem made up. I wonder if this is a case of malicious forge-subscriptions. If that is so, practicing confirmed opt-in would have prevented this. The message itself does not shed any light on the address list building mechanisms of this sender.
Alurium, Inc., a cloud computing and web hosting company, sent a bulk email advertisement for a webinar to a number of spamtraps today. None of these spamtraps had ever heard from Alurium before, at least not since exiting their timeout periods and being turned into spamtraps. The ESP is Sendgrid.
Atenga, a consulting firm that teaches businesses how to set prices for their products and services to maximize profits, today sent a bulk advertising email to a spamtrap that closed in 2004. The spamtrap has not previously received email from Atenga. Was this a typoed subscription, or a purchased list? The ESP is Sendgrid.
The old Military Industrial Buyer’s Guide spammers that I blogged about back in November 2011 are back under new domains (dodsupplier.com and dodworld.com) and slightly modified name (Federal Buyer’s Guide). Their ESP is still SendGrid.
Pixel Designz, a custom web site design firm, is sending email advertisements to two spamtraps, neither of which has been live since before 2006. Neither spamtrap has received email from this company since exiting their timeout period and being turned into spamtraps. Since the domain pixeldesignz.com was created in 2010, neither of these email addresses could have subscribed to this company’s list when they were live. The only explanations I can come up with for this are two separate typoed email addresses (not likely) or a purchased list. The ESP is Sendgrid.
My mother’s email address is travelling extensively. I presume this is due to an email list supposed to be targeted to individuals who like to travel. Today’s installment includes the following, from a company that calls itself “Hello Travel” (hellotravel.com), which neither she nor I had ever heard of before. The ESP was Sendgrid.