In a pair of posts at Email Marketing Reports, Mark Brownlow discusses the subject of spam traps. He says there are two main types:

Honeypots. "Some [anti-spam] organizations put specific email addresses on a website for the sole purpose of attracting harvesting software," he explains. Spammers may then capture these "honeypot" addresses and add them to a mailing list without permission. Advice: don't buy email lists.

Dormant Addresses. When an account falls into disuse, users stop sending email, but spammers keep spamming. To catch them, webmail services might repurpose a dead account as a spam trap. Advice: regularly clean the lists you have. 

Even if you're following best practices for permission-based marketing, spam traps still present a potential challenge. For instance, a malicious entity might submit a subscription request, prompting your double opt-in process to deliver an automatic confirmation to a spam trap's inbox. So how can you manage this risk? Brownlow turned to George Bilbrey of Return Path for some advice, including:

• Use a different mail server with a different Internet Protocol (IP) for confirmation messages. In a worst-case scenario, only your welcome message gets flagged.
• Check addresses for obviously malicious entries. They often contain identifiable keywords like trap, honeypot or abuse.

The Po!nt: Beware the trap! As Return Path reports, "We found a 20-point difference in delivery rates for IPs with just one spam trap hit."

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