On Saturday, October 26, around 9:00 a.m. in the morning, The American Direct Marketing Association sent out an email to a list that was clearly purchased. It was sent by way of Yesmail, data broker InfoUSA’s email wing.
Here’s the payload of the spam:
We know it to be spam to purchased lists because it was sent to ‘tagged’ addresses, single-purpose addresses used at only one place. Chief Marketer (directnewsline / pbinews.com / primedia.com aka Penton Media) were involved in selling or renting their subscriber lists, The DMA in mailing to them, and Yesmail in facilitating the emailing. This is not the first spa, seen at these aliases, Aviationweek.com also spammed them in September.
Here’s the funny bit, they claim recipients were interested in, or members of The DMA. That’s an outright lie!
You received this email message at redacted@munged.com due to your membership, participation, or interest in DMA.
In fact, not only did the DMA spam several people at CAUCE, but they also managed to spam Steve Linford, the CEO of Spamhaus, the world’s most well-used anti-spam blacklist. Spamhaus wrote about the issue, here. The DMA should know better than to rent of purchase lists; the provenance of permission is always lousy. The only way to properly advertise your goods and services on someone else’s list is to have them place your creative in with their regular mailings.
The spam run precipitated in four Yesmail IPs getting listed on the SBL (Spamhaus Block List)
| 2013-10-27 02:00:19 GMT | yesmail.com |
| Spam Source (email-dma.org / thedma.org / the-dma.org) (U.S. Direct Marketing Association) |
