Spam spiders: First Bite

A while back, I laid out some bait for spiders that might be parsing sites, looking for email addresses. I never really looked back, though, as after a couple weeks, I'd only gotten the most basic of spam, mostly offering tips on how to maximize my blog.

But I gave up too soon. Terry Johnson, a Senior Advertising Consultant with the Business Development Department of Topspot Promotions wanted to contact me. Well, sort of. They wanted to contact the webmaster of DarkTaco. Did this look like the place to get that email address?

Dear Webmaster,

I would like to inform you of an interesting opportunity for your website.

I am looking for reputable websites to support us in promoting our client's websites and I would be more than happy to send you more information about our proposal.

If you are interested, please let me know and I will be happy to inform you further.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Best,
Terry Johnson
Senior Advertising Consultant
Business Development Department
terry@topspot-promotions.com
http://www.topspot-promotions.com

If you do not respond to this email you will not receive any additional emails from TopSpot-Promotions.
To permanently delete yourself from our list, simply reply to this with a blank email and you will not receive any communication from us in the future.


0343

Dear Terry's name even appears on their site as a Promotion Manager. Maybe he/she was demoted since April. I'd like to point out that Terry is looking for "reputable websites." Look around. DarkTaco is many things, but something tells me he/she didn't read the post herself.

In any case, I am not judging them, nor making any claims about the company. I am merely demonstrating that there is good chance that Topspot Promotions utilizes spiders to scan websites for email addresses they can contact. Some might call this spam, but not me. I'm content with merely using the name Topspot Promotions and the word "spam" in the same post a few times, and letting the spiders figure it out.