Where to send your Spam Complaints

Domain or IP address begins with:
[ 0-4 | 5-9 | a-f | g-l | m-s | t-z ]

Notes

This list is not intended to be used as a blacklist. If you try to use it that way and you block legitimate messages, it's not my fault. There are many fine blacklist services out there that update much more frequently than I update this list. Since installing a few antispam measures on my own systems, my spam count is far reduced from what it used to be, so updates to this list lately have been on the order of once or twice in a six month period.

This list is by no means comprehensive, it's merely those that I have found and information about domains that I've received spams from. Domains that seem to be a problem with their abuse contacts are highlighted.

I have made every effort to provide accurate information. The abuse addresses, where possible, are confirmed against the domain's public web sites and any replies that I get from attempting to contact them. Typically, I will try the abuse@, postmaster@ and root@ addresses for each domain, in that order. For domains that I have not yet verified (the emails are in italics), the last address that I've tried will be listed; check the notes column at the far right for more details on any domain. I've tried very hard, but I cannot guarantee accuracy, so I apologize for any errors; if you find an error, or if you are the sysadmin of a host that is not listed here, please let me know so I can update or add the correct information.

Where domains are listed in the spam headers, I will attempt to contact the admins of those domains. Where domains are listed in the spam body, I will usually try to find where the site is hosted and contact the hosting domain's admin.
If, for one reason or another, I am unable to contact administrators at the specified domain or IP address, and if I am required to go to the domain's upstream host for a resolution to a spamming issue, then the domain's record on this page will be listed with a yellow background highlight (like this paragraph). If at least one address at the specified domain does not bounce for me, then the domain will not be highlighted.

Since the abuse addresses already get a lot of email, I have split the name and domain for abuse emails to foil the spam bots (but failed addresses will appear as normal in the notes where applicable). Please be polite when you email them, they are hardworking people and don't need us threatening them (my own emails to abuse admins simply state "Please take care of this spammer. Thank you."). Also, please do not send more than one complaint for any spam to responsible domain admins. Mailbombing the admins' inboxes only makes the admins mad at you, not the spammer.

For more information about spam and why so many people object to it, visit CAUCE - the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email or FREE - the Forum for Responsible and Ethical Email. These are also excellent places to find information on how to decode a spam's headers to ensure that you're complaining to the correct domain.

For the spams that I receive, I send a note to the admin of the domain listed in the last Received line, then I scan the spam bodies for the addresses of the sites that they are advertising. The advertised sites will usually lead to a complaint to the site's upstream host, since the spammer is the advertised site. Also, I send notes to the admins of any sites that are listed as domains in contact emails in the spam bodies. Finally, I forward a copy of the spam to the US Federal Trade Commission

For a quick laugh, check out some of the disclaimers that I've seen in spams lately...

Oh yeah, and before I forget, I am not a member of the lumber cartel (there is no lumber cartel).

Antispam Tools

There are several pages on the net about decoding email headers (many of them are linked at the above-listed organizations), so I won't go into the details here. When I can only resolve an originator to an IP address, I'll try to access the address in lynx (a text-based web browser) to see what happens. If that doesn't give me a valid domain name, I'll lookup the address with nslookup. If nslookup fails, sometimes I'll try to telnet to port 25 on the given IP address (however, since this usually fails for me, I don't try it all that often). I'll also run a traceroute on the IP, which will usually turn up a dialup or other broadband provider as the next-nearest link. If I get bounces from the addresses that I try, then I'll usually perform a Whois lookup on the domain name and try to go one step further up the chain.

One other tool worth mentioning is the power of distributed investigation. The regular members of news.admin.net-abuse.email are invaluable in helping to track down where to send complaints (larts) to. This newsgroup can be searched at Google Groups.

Contact Info

If you have any updates about any of the information on this list, please email me. To foil the spambots, my email address (fynzob@gqf.arg) is encrypted with rot13. Many rot13 decoders are online (http://www.google.com/search?q=rot13+decoder).
Generally, the proper location to email is abuse@spammers-domain. If the abuse@ address doesn't work, try postmaster@spammers-domain or root@spammers-domain. Other common addresses are listed in RFC 2142 "Mailbox Names for Common Services, Roles and Functions." Those that I have verified or found to be different are listed below (unverified addresses are shown in italics).

As this list was getting quite long, I've split it up into smaller chunks so you don't have to wait so long to see it.

Domain or IP address begins with:
[ 0-4 | 5-9 | a-f | g-l | m-s | t-z ]

One final note... I'm on a lot of mailing lists these days about spam and spam fighting tools. One of the list members for one antispam tool has the following in his mail headers (I added hyperlinks to appropriate enacted laws):

X-SpamAdvice: Pursuant to US Code; Title 47; Chapter 5; Subchapter II; 227 any unsolicited commercial email to this address will be subject to a download and archival fee of US$500. Pursuant to California Business & Professions Code; S17538.45 any email service provider involved in SPAM activities will be liable for statutory damages of US$50 per message, up to US$25,000 per day. Pursuant to California Penal Code; S502 any unsolicited email sent to this address is in violation of Federal Law and is subject to fine and/or imprisonment.

These references are real laws.