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Just give it up already

I have a mail system totally separate from my inbox to use when I’m testing signup forms. Some of them are client, some of them are vendors my clients are thinking about using. In any case, it’s mail I’m seriously concerned won’t stop just by me opting out of it.
The server hosting that mail system has been flakey lately, and needs to be hard power cycled to make it come back. We had a major power glitch this morning and so ended up down at the colo and power cycled that box while we were there.
This box was last working February 4th. It’s been off the internet for almost 2 months now. It wasn’t answering on port 25. It was dead. No mail here. And, yet, a bunch of legitimate email marketers are still attempting to send those addresses mail.
Really. Dead for 2 months and the senders keep trying to mail to those addresses. The server came back about 2 1/2 hours ago. I already have 6 emails from two different senders.
Seriously. If you can’t deliver a mail to someone for TWO MONTHS just give it up already. I am sad that even companies that get the best advice I can give them still can’t get the simple things right.
And, really, don’t argue “but it came back! Clearly we should keep trying!” Yes, it came back. But in all the years I’ve had this disposable email system I have not opened a single image. I’ve not purchased a single thing. I’ve never shown any sign of life on any of those addresses. The mailserver has been down for months at a time. There is no value to continuing to send mail to those addresses. And, yet, people still do it.
Why? WHY!?

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We only mail people who sign up!

I get a lot of calls from clients who can’t understand why they have spamtraps on their lists. Most of them tell me that they never purchase or rent lists, and they only mail to people who sign up on their website. I believe them, but not all of the data that people input into webforms is correct.
While I don’t have any actual numbers for how many people lie in forms, there was a slashdot poll today that asked readers “How truthful are you when creating web accounts?”. The answer seems to be “not very” at least for the self-selected respondents.

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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.

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