How do spam traps help fight spam?

Probably everyone will agree that spam - it sucks. This is something that we don’t really want to see in our mailboxes. If you send spam through Pechkin, you can go and make yourself a seppuku before we find and punish you.

In order to combat spam, some organizations (and our email marketing service as well) use so-called “spam traps” to identify spammers. Spam traps have already formed a network of myths and legends about what it is, how they are created, how they are used and how they fall into your address database.

Spam trap (spam trap) is an email address that is created but not used in operation, i.e. he did not subscribe to any of the mailings. It is monitored for receiving messages that will clearly be spam. Also, these addresses are searched in your address databases. The massive presence of spam trap in your address database leads to an immediate blocking of your account. In this article we will talk about how spam traps are classified based on their origin.
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So, the sources of origin of spam traps can be countless, but there are 3 main ones:

• Addresses that belonged to someone, but subsequently ceased to exist. Such addresses replenish the database of spam traps of the main mail providers.
• Addresses that do not belong to anyone, however, receive spam. Such addresses are usually used for spam filtering.
• Addresses that were specifically created for placement in open sources. Thus, we can monitor mailings that use spam databases collected, for example, using such spam tools (extractors and harvesters).

Let's tell a little more in detail.

Addresses that previously belonged to someone, however, subsequently, ceased to exist for various reasons, usually “turned off” for a certain period of time between blocking and assigning them as spam traps. Alternatively, they can return a 550 SMTP “User unknown” error to all senders. According to anti-spam agreements, you must exclude such users from your address database. Usually this period is about a year. If you use bases from “zagashnikov” - you will definitely fall into the spam trap.

Addresses that never belong to anyone usually keep track of small or medium mail providers and servers. They accept any mail to all addresses without error, no matter whether such an address exists or not. If the mail is received at a non-existent address (for example, the recipient's name is simply searched), then it is simply stored in the statistics, based on which potential spam can be filtered. True, this method is extremely resource-intensive and is rarely used at the moment. After all, storing tons of unnecessary letters for analysis is, of course, evil.

With addresses from open sources, everything is simple. There are companies that “grab” and “parish” various resources like 2gis, yellow pages, etc., and begin to peck at the “partners” and “colleagues” with every kind of spam. Here, in order to calculate this in advance, we use our own spam traps, which are used to verify the downloadable address databases of our clients. Also, we have bots that register our spam traps in various forms. Obviously, if the box is not used, no one will click the confirmation from the letter. Thus, we monitor compliance with double opt-in principles (subscription confirmations) on various sites.

In general, the presence of one or two spam trap in your address databases is not critical, but if their number is significant - this is a reason to check your site, subscription form, etc. If suspicions arise, the account is immediately blocked and clarifying questions are asked. Spam service does not sleep. We fight with spammers in our small area, contributing, albeit small, but contributing to the overall reduction in the number of spam mailings in Runet.