MindComet

It Says “Do NOT Reply”

How often do you get emails with a reply-to email address starting with “donotreply”?  Or “something@donotreply.com”  Well, if you’re like me you get them quite often.  It’s somewhat rude and offensive how some companies believe they can contact you but they feel you’re not worthy enough to contact them in return.  The nerve! 

Well, for one programmer based out of Seattle, WA, this has been a blessing… since he owns the domain “donotreply.com”.  On a daily basis his inbox is littered with emails from random customers of Fortune 500 companies, banks (which include sensitive account information), governmental departments and the like (spammers too, naturally).

They have a blog here, that documents all of their more interesting cases. Its certainly worth a read.

To all companies that use this practice: STOP IT.  Otherwise, you may see your company listed on donotreply’s blog.  Not good for your Human Resources or Customer Service departments alike.

Thanks to MailChimp for pointing this out.

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Posted by MindComet on Mar. 26, 2008

Spamology

Spamology is an interactive website environment which uses audiovisual representations of word frequencies in spam e-mail messages.  Its creators have collected data from over 2,000,000 emails originating from all over the world over the past 10 years (1997-2008).  The higher the stack, the more frequent the use of the ‘spammy’ word.

You’d think common spammy words such as Viagra, FREE, or CIALIS would have the largest stacks (and undoubtedly, they are VERY high stacks), but its common words such as “with” or “but” that have the highest stack sizes.

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Posted by MindComet on Mar. 03, 2008

The Axe Effect: Using SPAM to Their Advantage?

A co-worker recently passed me a link to a video showing one of the most creative (yet spammiest) email campaigns I’ve ever seen.  The campaign is for Axe Body Spray in Germany.  It’s a viral campaign which when the referred user gets the email and clicks on the link embedded within, they’re sent to a landing page which displays a can of Axe Body Spray.  When you click on the can, it plays a songs and animates.

Then…

The user gets 15 emails from women, all with subject lines along the lines of “Hmm… hot computer! But not as hot as you =)”  and “Can you do me a favor? Then I can give you my flavor!” with the final email being “You just got the AXE EFFECT!”

Now, this is an extremely creative and unique way to go about a viral email campaign, but it’s a very risky move… the agency who came up with this campaign obviously didn’t take Can-Spam compliance laws into consideration when they were executing this.  I’m sure many major email clients blocked the IP this email was being sent from.

Do you think the benefits outweigh the risks in this case?

Check out the video here.

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Posted by MindComet on Nov. 15, 2007

PDF Spam On the Rise

Recently, the amount of spam hitting inboxes has stayed relatively steady, but according to Symantec (an internet security firm based out of Cupertino, CA), the tactics used by spammers is changing.

Spammers are shifting from image-embedded emails to PDF-attached emails, duping many – especially those checking their email through business-related accounts.  PDF spam now makes up two to eight percent of all spam.

The nuisance of spam will never go away.  It’s incorporating of other file types besides PDFs too, such as zip files and Excel files, which will only increase the amount of confusion on what emails, are “safe” to open for the general public.

The only surefire way to stop spam dead in its tracks is for users to hotly embrace the use of whitelists and address books.

Read more here.

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Posted by MindComet on Aug. 20, 2007