Blog for hpHosts, and whatever else I feel like writing about ....

Thursday 9 July 2009

Update: Low Cost Server Hosting spamming

With reference to my previous article concerning the Low Cost Server Hosting spamming campaign, I thought I'd give you an update as there's been a few developments.

After obtaining the IP and e-mail address of the spammer that sparked the investigation, and speaking further with Mr Dale at Low Cost Server Hosting, it would appear that whilst they were responsible, they were not actually directly responsible for the spam.

LCSH hired SEO India & Services" (aka Prodigy Apex Technologies), an Indian "SEO" company, to do the marketing for them. Sadly, what Mr Dale was not aware of, is that the company he hired, was marketing his company, not using ethical means, but by spamming all and sundry.

This does bring about a very important point however. Whether you are doing the marketing using your own company's marketing dept, or by out sourcing it, you MUST ensure you keep a close eye on exactly how the marketing is being done, as incidents such as this, will only ever do your company's reputation harm, it will never help it.

In the case of the Indian SEO company responsible, this doesn't actually surprise me at all as we've seen this far too many times. What does get my goat, is that companies are still hiring these people - WHEN WILL YOU LEARN!.

If you'd like to ban them before you reach your website, the spammers particulars in this case are;

Username: keatealphonse
IP: 122.164.234.173 (dsl-tn-dynamic-173.234.164.122.airtelbroadband.in)
E-mail: keatealphonse@gmail.com

Ref:
http://forum.hosts-file.net/sbst/index.php?name=&email=keatealphonse@gmail.com&ip=122.164.234.173

http://www.projecthoneypot.org/ip_122.164.234.173

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