Carbon Central UK, an online marketplace for trading in carbon credits, sent bulk email to a number of my spamtraps last night. None of the spamtraps had previously received email from this entity. The ESP is Emailvision.
Diverse Careers, a California-based job board and career fair management company, is sending email newsletters to an email address that has never existed at all. This email address, along with a plausible but incorrect name, has been receiving a great deal of job-related and recruiting spam from what appear to be different organizations in the past several months, suggesting that it may be on a “targeted” list for sale. The ESP is Vertical Response.
Google Calendar is sending daily bulk email notifications to a spamtrap. The spamtrap was recently re-enabled after its timeout period, which means that for a period of over twelve consecutive months, it issued 500-level SMTP rejections to the daily Google Calendar email notifications. It is likely that this spamtrap years ago, when live, was subscribed to Google Calendar notifications. However, after a year of 500-level rejections to a daily bulk email, those emails need to have stopped. These did not, and are now spam. Google needs to fix its broken bounce processing for Google Calendar NOW.
U.S.-based energy market advisor and manager Fellon-McCord is sending bulk email advertisements to a closed role address at an ISP that went out of business in 2002. This spamtrap has also not previously received email from Fellon-McCord. The role address is not one of the standard role addresses used at many sites, which might account for its presence on a large number of lists for sale. It is also unlikely to be result of a typo. The ESP is Sendgrid.
Fight for the Future, a newly-formed nonprofit group that opposes the SOPA and PIPA antipiracy legislation currently under consideration in the U.S. Congress and that runs the sopastrike.com web site, is sending bulk email to email addresses that were entered into that web site as contact email addresses in case there was a problem with the user’s blacked-out web site or some other technical issue. The bulk email makes no claim to opt-in, although it offers an opt-out link. The ESP is Blue State Digital.
Today Ben Isaacson, the deliverability and compliance manager at Cheetahmail, posted a blog on the Cheetahmail web site, “A CheetahMail New Years’ Resolution: Giving Up Email Append”.
Burt’s Bees, a popular U.S.-based natural cosmetics manufacturing company, is now sending bulk emails to a spamtrap that it allegedly updated via the opt-out FreshAddress service several weeks ago. Despite this futile and pointless attempt to turn an opt-out email address into an opt-in email address, their email still hit one of my spamtraps. It will likely hit several others when the rest of the list is mailed. The ESP is Responsys.
Design A Print, Inc., a South Carolina-based custom printing and design business, is sending bulk email advertisements to an email address that was closed in 2007. This spamtrap has not previously received email from Design A Print, at least not since it finished its timeout period and was re-enabled in early 2010. The ESP is Vertical Response.
Try It Local, a “deals” web site that offers discounts on products and services of local merchants to its users, is all of the sudden sending bulk email to an email address that closed in 2005. This service has not sent email to this email address previously, at least not since it ended its timeout period and became a spamtrap in 2008. The ESP is ExactTarget.