MainSleaze

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.

I’m noticing more and more cases of spamtraps suddenly starting to receive email where they never had before. In some cases, this appears to be because companies or organizations are reactivating very old lists of email addresses. In others, it is obviously due to purchased lists or to an e-append provider being hired to add email addresses to customer records. Although list purchases and e-pending are spam by definition, while use of a very old list is generally considered less culpable/more of a grey area, NONE of these explanations is an excuse for sending spam.

I also invite comments from any attorney or person who is particularly knowledgeable about the U.S. CAN-SPAM law on whether that law applies to the U.S. Postal Service and other government agencies that are partly independent of the government, but not entirely so.

Sending IP: 74.112.65.230

Spam Sample:

Actual Headers:

Received: from mail2846.usps.mkt3442.com (mail2846.usps.mkt3442.com [74.112.65.230])
        by <xxx> (Postfix) with ESMTP id <xxx>
        for <xxx>; Wed, 16 May 2012 09:xx:xx <xxx>
DKIM-Signature: <xxx>
DomainKey-Signature: <xxx>
Received: by mail2846.usps.mkt3442.com (PowerMTA(TM) v3.5r16) id <xxx> 
        for <xxx>; Wed, 16 May 2012 14:xx:xx <xxx> 
        (envelope-from <v-<xxx>@bounce.usps.mkt3442.com>)
Date: Wed, 16 May 2012 14:xx:xx <xxx>
From: "U.S. Postal Service" <email@customer.usps.com>
Reply-To: noreply@customer.usps.com
To: <xxx>
Message-ID: <xxx>
Subject: While supplies last: FREE International Shipping Kit from USPS
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
        boundary="<xxx>"
x-mid: <xxx>
x-job: <xxx>
x-orgId: <xxx>
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:v-<xxx>@bounce.usps.mkt3442.com?subject=Unsubscribe>

Readable Email:

From: U.S. Postal Service <email@customer.usps.com>
To: <spamtrap>
Subject: While supplies last: FREE International Shipping Kit from USPS
Reply-To: noreply@customer.usps.com

Hurry! Get your FREE International Shipping Kit(1).
http://links.usps.mkt3442.com/ctt?<xxx>

You are receiving this e-mail because you provided consent to receive marketing information about products and services from the Postal Service(TM). No longer interested? You can unsubscribe here.
http://links.usps.mkt3442.com/ctt?<xxx>

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