You want to sell me a list?

Over the years, some of my clients have found it expedient to give me email addresses at their domains. These addresses forward mail addressed to laura@clientsite to my own mailbox. Generally these are so I can be added to internal mailing lists and have access to their internal tools.
It’s often amusing to see the spam that comes through to those addresses. Over the last few weeks I’ve received multiple spams advertising an email appending service.
Let the irony sink in. An email appending service is sending me an email at a client company offering the client company the opportunity to append email addresses. “See how accurate our appending is!”
How accurate can a service be if they can’t even target their own spam correctly?
In addition to the appalling targeting they’re also violating CAN SPAM (no physical postal address), their website is a collection of broken links and they don’t provide any company name or information in the email or on the website.
To top it all off, the mail says, “if you’re not the right person to act on this mail, please forward this to the right person.” Followed by a standard legal disclaimer that says, “The information contained in this e-mail message and any attachments is confidential information intended only for the use of individuals or entities named above. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail at the originating address.”
I wonder if blogging about the utter email incompetence about mail from David Williams, Business Development (phone number: 800-961-5127) violates the confidentiality clause?

I need to dodge filters
Delivery resources

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I don't have a "this is spam" button

Here at Word to the Wise we have some unique requirements for mail. For instance, I need to be able to receive examples of emails that are being blocked elsewhere in order to do my job. This means not only do we not outsource mail to someone else, we also run limited spam filtering on the server side. It does mean I have to wade through a bit more spam than others do, but that’s generally not a problem. My client side filters do a decent job at keeping most of the crud out of my mailboxes.
My work account gets very little spam in the folder I use as my inbox. I’m not even sure exactly why this is, but it’s true. One of the exceptions is a psychic (no, really) who has a copy of one of my work email addresses and she regularly spams me offering her spiritual guidance and the opportunity to buy her stuff in order to make peace within my world.  I’ve received these before, usually I just delete them and move on.
Occasionally, though, I long for the ease of a “this is spam” button. Just to be able to hit a single button, no work, no effort and know that I have registered my frustration with a spammer. Today was one of those days. I really don’t want this psychic spam in my mailbox. It seems reasonably professionally done, though, so I check the headers to see if it’s being send from any ESP I know and if it’s worth my time to send in a “hey, didn’t sign up for this, and no, I didn’t forget, either” email.
I visited the website belonging to the domain sending the mail.

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TWSD: Run, hide and obfuscate

Spammers and spamming companies have elevated obfuscating their corporate identities to an artform. Some of the more dedicated, but just this side of legal, spammers set up 3 or 4 different front companies: one to sell advertising, one or more to actually send mail, one to get connectivity and one as a backup for when the first three fail. Because they use rotating domain names and IP addresses all hidden behind fake names or “privacy protection services”, the actual spammer can be impossible to track without court documents.
One example of this is Ken Magill’s ongoing series of reports about EmailAppenders.
Aug 5, 2008 Ouch: A List-Purchase Nighmare
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April 14, 2009 EmailAppenders a Court No-Show, Says Internet Retailer
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May 5, 2009 EmailAppenders Back with New Web Site, New Name
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While Ken has chronicled one example of this, there are dozens of similar scammers. Many of them don’t have a persistent reporter documenting all the company changes, so normal due diligence searches fail to turn up any of the truth. Companies looking for affiliates or list sources often fall victim to scammers and spammers, and suffer delivery and reputation problems as a result.
Companies that insist on using list sellers, lead generation companies and affilates must protect themselves from these sorts of scammers. Due diligence can be a challenge, because of the many names, domains and businesses these companies hide behind. Those tasked with investigating affiliates, address sources or or mailing partners can use some of the same investigative techniques Ken did to identify potential problems.

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