COLUMN: From time to time I have to laugh at the idiocy of SEO companies and Web startups who are constantly trying to pollute the Web with their crap, and take to spamming companies when they apparently have no clue what they’re doing from either an ethical or business perspective. To take these cretins and buffoons and violators of common sense and “good Web citizenship” to task, we’ve decided to start a regular column by mentioning these companies by name to make people aware of them. Today I just got another batch of crap from somebody who thinks that trolling for emails on the Web is an excuse to send them something. Wrongo reindeer, bubba!

This week, we’re happy to feature the folks at “MyPRGenie, Inc.” who sent us various pieces of spam (unsolicited commercial email is spam people, not a friendly message) promoting in their subject line “MyPRGenie Newswire Partnership.” What’s funny (or sad) is that they sent this to one of my company’s services in the PR business, Send2Press.com, which is a newswire. Basically, they sent a “partnership” email to one of their competitors (not that we consider them to be such, since we’ve been around 27 years and they are spamming people).

Notably, there are several things wrong with this “partnership” message. First, we already got a couple of these sent to our other sites (addressed to different named individuals). Second, there is nobody at our company, nor has there ever been, anybody named “Gordon” — which can clearly be found by looking at the staff page on our site. Third, we are a highly respected newswire service, and so why would we want to post another companies client’s on our site? That’s like calling up Pepsi and asking them if they would like to include some Coke product in their end-caps at the supermarket. Doh. Of course, since this is spam, they had no actual interest in a partnership, since they didn’t bother to look at the site they were sending it to, look at who runs the company, etc.

All the spam originated from 208.82.15.227.rainbowbroadband.com, and we sent a complaint (well, two actually) to the Rainbow Broadband admin listed at ARIN. Apparently an ISP located in New York.

If you type in the IP in Firefox, you also get this warning:
This Connection is Untrusted
You have asked Firefox to connect
securely to 208.82.15.227:4443, but we can’t confirm that your connection is secure.

In Internet Explorer, once you get past the bad security cert warning, the browser pops up a login/password dialog. This is common with log-ins for spam / bulk email applications.

It’s really too bad these start-ups and “also ran” companies feel compelled to spam businesses and websites in order to build an audience; why not buy advertising in the PR industry magazines if you’re serving the PR industry? Why not buy Google AdWords? Spam is the last choice for a company without moral character, in my opinion, and any company that sends bulk “unsolicited” (meaning the recipient didn’t ASK FOR IT) email should be banned from having Internet access.

In the case of this “company” spamming our sites with their fake partnership emails, which are nothing more than requests for website owners to carry their content. And they aren’t offering to pay the people receiving the spam, either. Wow – you want me to post your content on MY site for free? Suuuuuure.

Of course, on our contact us page it also states “do not send us partnership requests.” But since no human actually visited our site(s) before sending us all the spam, I shouldn’t expect manners or consideration.

I feel bad for their “2000 clients” who are now a party to this bad business practice, and who will likely eventually find their content on a block list along with anything this company does, thanks to their spam blasts.

In doing a reverse lookup at DomainTools for their main domain name, we can see a lot of IP changes over the years and folks who change the name server for their site 5 times in 4 years, usually means they are getting kicked off a system once their evil is uncovered (not sure if that applies here, just saying we’ve seen that to be the case in the past):
NS History – myprgenie . com :
5 changes on 5 unique name servers over 4 years.
IP History:
7 changes on 8 unique name servers over 5 years.

Follows is the spam email in question, for your enjoyment, derision, and if you need to validate your own complaints to Rainbow Broadband in a spam complaint.

Not sure yet whether we’ll send you a trophy, a certificate, or just include you in the annual roundup of the biggest spammers we’ve been annoyed by in 2010. Good job PRgenie!

About Christopher Laird Simmons

Christopher Laird Simmons is a 25+ year veteran in the advertising and marketing business and has helped launch numerous companies including MacMall®, FindWhat.com, and Send2Press® Newswire. He is an award winning photographer, designer, and one of the first experts in the field of SEO. He is a former contributing editor to numerous magazines. He is a PR pro and member of the PRSA, a professional musician and member of ASCAP, and the founder of Neotrope®. He is the author of FRACTOPIA, an art book (Neotrope Press, Dec. 2008). UNAUTHORIZED REPUBLICATION OF THIS CONTENT IS PROHIBITED UNDER U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT LAWS.

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