MainSleaze

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.

Although the senders of this spam are Russian and therefore not under the jurisdiction of either American or European Union anti-spam laws, Sendgrid is an American company. The email that it sends must (as I understand the law) meet the extremely lax criteria of the rightly named U.S. CAN-SPAM law, which requires that bulk email contain a postal address and an opt-out web link or other opt-out instructions. This spam lacked either of these things. The spam was also sent to an MX server in the European Union, which requires an opt-out link and also has much stricter data privacy laws and generally requires that email sent to personal email addresses be opt-in.

Since Sendgrid is a good ESP that does not tolerate spam, I expect that they will explain these facts to their customer. 🙂 However, many readers of this blog are not necessarily familiar with the laws regarding bulk email in various parts of the world, so I thought that I would mention them here.

Sending IP: 50.31.52.82

Spam Sample:

Actual Headers:

Received: from o1.email.automarke.ru (o1.email.automarke.ru [50.31.52.82])
        by <xxx> (Postfix) with SMTP id <xxx>
        for <xxx>; Sun,  3 Jun 2012 16:xx:xx +0000 (UT)
DKIM-Signature: <xxx>
Received: by 10.41.xx.xx with SMTP id <xxx>
        Sun, 03 Jun 2012 16:xx:xx +0000 (UTC)
Received: from 127.0.0.1 (unknown [mi13])
        by mi13.sendgrid.net (SG) with ESMTP id <xxx>
        for <xxx>; Sun, 03 Jun 2012 11:xx:xx -0500 (CST)
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
        boundary="<xxx>"
MIME-Version: 1.0
From: Avto Marke <info@avtomarke.ru>
To: <xxx>
Reply-To: info@avtomarke.ru
Subject: =?UTF-8?B?0KLQvtCy0LDRgNGLINC00LvRjyDQsA==?=
 =?UTF-8?B?0LLRgtC+0LvRjtCx0LjRgtC10Ls=?=
 =?UTF-8?B?0LXQuQ==?=
Message-ID: <xxx>
Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2012 16:xx:xx +0000 (UTC)
X-Sendgrid-EID: <xxx>
X-Sendgrid-ID: <xxx>

Readable Email:

From: Avto Marke <info@avtomarke.ru>
To: <spamtrap>
Subject: Товары для автолюбителей
Reply-To: info@avtomarke.ru

Товары семи известнейших немецких, японских и итальянских автомобильных марок!

http://www.avtomarke.ru

Одежда, аксессуары и сувенирная продукция для автолюбителей из официальных коллекций мировых брендов – всё это только на:

http://www.avtomarke.ru

BMW, Ferrari, Porsche, Toyota, Subarau, Mitsubishi, Mercedes-Benz.

Доставка по всем регионы РФ!

     
English Translation:

From: Auto Market <info@avtomarke.ru>
To: <spamtrap>
Subject: Products for motorists
Reply-To: info@avtomarke.ru

Supplies for seven famous German, Japanese, and Italian brands of automobiles!

http://www.avtomarke.ru

Clothing, accessories and souvenirs for motorists from the official collections of international brands – all just arrived:

http://www.avtomarke.ru

BMW, Ferrari, Porsche, Toyota, Subarau, Mitsubishi, Mercedes-Benz.

Shipping to all regions of the Russian Federation!