Spamtraps

There is a lot of mythology surrounding spamtraps, what they are, what they mean, how they’re used and how they get on lists.
Spamtraps are very simply unused addresses that receive spam. They come from a number of places, but the most common spamtraps can be classified in a few ways.

  • Addresses that used to belong to someone and subsequently abandoned. This is where a lot of spamtraps at major ISPs come from.
  • Addresses that were never assigned to anyone, but they just started receiving spam one day. These are frequently used to drive filtering.
  • Addresses that were created and put on websites to track harvesters and web scrapers.  These addresses are frequently used to drive filters and track spammers.

Addresses that belonged to someone and were abandoned are usually “turned off” for a period of time between abandonment and re-purposing as a spam trap. They may return a 550 “user unknown” to any sender, or in some cases the entire domain will have no working mailserver. There are no hard and fast rules for how long the addresses are left unused, but most professionals leave them off for at least a year.
Addresses that were never assigned to anyone are not as common as they used to be. It used to be that some small or mid-size domain owners would turn on their SMTP server to accept all email to any address at that domain, existing or not. Mail to addresses that were not associated with a user would be stored. As the volumes of random mail increased, the spamtraps were used to drive filtering and blocking decisions. This is not as common now because the sheer volume of spam can create bandwidth and storage problems for domain owners.
Addresses that were seeded on websites, or on Usenet, are used for a number of purposes. These addresses often wind up on lists because someone has purchased addresses.
Spamtraps on a mailing list or in a database is a sign that there is some problem with the address acquisition process. As a result, the solution to spamtraps on a list is never just remove the available spamtraps. Instead, you need to figure out what broke and correct the underlying issues.

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“If you do stupid things, you’re going to get blocked,” says Jigsaw CEO Jim Fowler in an interview with Ken Magill earlier this week.
Jigsaw is a company that rewards members to input their valuable business contacts. Once the addresses are input into Jigsaw, they are sold to anyone who wants them. Jigsaw gets the money, the people providing information get… something, the people who provided business cards to Jigsaw members get spammed and the people who downloaded the lists get to deal with a delivery mess. Sounds like a lose for everyone but Jigsaw.
Except that now Jigsaw is listed on the SBL for spam support services. Well, that’s going to cause some business challenges, particularly given how many companies use the SBL as part of their filtering scheme.
It’s hard to think of a situation where I would appreciate someone I gave a business card to providing my information to a site that then turns around and lets anyone download it to send email to. I know, I know, there are a million companies out there I’ve never heard of that have The Product that will Solve All my Problems. But, really, I don’t want them in my work mailbox. The address I give out on my business cards is, for, y’know, people to contact me about what I’m selling or to contact me about things they’ve already purchased from me. That address is not for people to market to. I have other addresses for vendors, and even potential vendors, to contact me.
Jigsaw clearly facilitates spam to businesses by collecting email addresses and then selling them on. This is a drain on small businesses who now have inboxes full of valuable offers to wade through. Perhaps their stint on the SBL will make them reconsider their spam support services.
HT: Al

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What is the secret to dealing with ISPs?
The short answer is: Don’t do it if at all possible. Talking to ISP reps generally isn’t going to magically improve your reptuation.  There is no place in the reputation systems where delivery can be modified because the delivery specialist knows or is liked by the postmaster at an ISP.
With my clients, I work through delivery issues and can solve 80 – 90% of the issues without ever having to contact anyone at the ISPs. 90% of the remaining issues can be handled using the publicly available contacts and websites provided by the ISPs.
In the remaining cases, the “secret” to getting useful and prompt replies is to:

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How much control over delivery do senders have? I have repeatedly said that senders control their delivery. This is mostly true. Senders control their side of the delivery chain, but there is a point where the recipient takes over and controls things.
As a recipient I can

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