Feb
24

January 2015 ESP Spam: Some Notes….

I see that Atro Tossavainen graphed the spam that we saw in January. Atro and I manage a substantial spamtrap collection together, so I have seen what he posted about. Nothing there surprised me except the hugely disproportionate amount of spam Topica sends to our spamtraps. I’ve blogged twice about Topica, and in the last blog recommended blocking their /22 because of the amounts of spam and probability that little or no non-spam email is sent from them any more. However, I did not realize that we were seeing twice as much spam from Topica as from ExactTarget, which sends several orders of magnitude more email than they do.

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Feb
06

When Users Really DO NOT Want Your Email….

As I was looking through today’s crop of ESP-sent, mostly mainsleaze spam, I kept stumbling across spam sent to some of my most amusing spamtraps. These spamtraps are not typotraps so much as obvious forgeries, the sort of thing that users type when they are asked for an email address, do not want to refuse, and yet do not want to receive email from you either. Any company might have one of these on their list, but I found several companies and a number of ESPs sending to several of these obvious forgeries. Today. In the past 24 hours.

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Dec
31

YTB: Offering Travel Deals to Spamtraps

Today travel aggregator YTB sent several dozen bulk emails to my spamtraps, offering a three-night stay at an unspecified location for $189. Most of the spamtraps were repurposed email addresses, but a few were pristine spamtraps that were not likely typotraps. The ESP was Silverpop, which was bought by IBM in 2014.

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Oct
12

The Democratic Governors Assocation: Spamming

The Democratic Governors Association (DGA), an arm of the U.S. Democratic political party whose goal is to elect Democrats as governors of U.S. States, is spamming heavily on behalf of political campaigns across the country. Their ESP is Silverpop, currently owned by IBM.

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Aug
29

Targeted Victory: Emailing a Dirty List Again

Targeted Victory, a U.S. political campaign organization, is emailing several of my spamtraps. Most are typotraps: pristine spamtraps that are similar enough to the domain names of large ISPs or companies that they receive a great deal of misdirected email. The email was sent through ESP and marketing automation specialist Silverpop, which was recently acquired by IBM.

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Jul
28

Parenting.com: How a Spamtrap Can Raise an Olympic Contender?

Today Parenting.com, a web site with information for parents of babies and toddlers, for the first time sent bulk email to a spamtrap that has been dead for over a decade. The web site is owned and operated by Parenting magazine, which belongs to consumer publication company Bonnier Corporation. The ESP is SilverPop.

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Jul
14

American Kennel Club: Committed to Dogs, and Spamming About It :/

The American Kennel Club (AKC), which manages dog breed registries in the United States and provides services to breeders and dog owners, just sent a bulk email to two spamtraps urging that the alleged owners of those spamtraps sign a petition. The ESP is SilverPop.

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Jun
07

EuroStar: Offering First Class Express Railroad Tickets to a Spamtrap

EuroStar, the high speed rail line that links London to Paris and Brussels via a tunnel underneath the English Channel, today sent a bulk email advertisement to an email address that has never existed. The ESP is SilverPop.

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May
16

U.S. Postal Service: Offering A Deal on International Shipping Supplies to a Spamtrap

The U.S. Postal Service today sent a bulk email advertisement offering a deal on their international shipping packages to an email address that has not heard from them before, at least not since it became a spamtrap in 2003. The ESP is SilverPop.

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Feb
21

General Mills Bell Institute: Continuing to Spam a Long-Closed Email Address

Over three months after I blogged about spam from Bell Institute, the research arm of General Mills, to one of my spamtraps, and over two months since the spam resumed after a Bell Institute representative claimed that the problem was fixed, the spam from Bell Institute to that spamtrap continues. The spam started in mid-November 2011; Bell Institute had not emailed that particular spamtrap since it was re-enabled after its timeout period. The ESP is SilverPop.

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