The domain b2b-data.co.uk was owned by Web Consultancy Group Ltd in 2017. Two SPAM emails were sent to me on May 23rd, 2017 and June 6th, 2017 AFTER the above unsubscribe link had been visited by the WayBack Machine (archive.org) on May 21st, 2017.
I did NOT visit the unsubscribe URL http://b2b-data.co.uk/interspire/unsubscribe.php?M=1&C=c1304cf4767c7882b3045bb85de0f930&L=1&N=3 and did not share it online in 2017.
If this was a legitimate unsubscribe link as subscriber 1 (M=1) on list 1 (L=1) should be associated with my email address and so I shouldn’t have received any email from this SPAM email database.
In 2017 the above Web Consultancy Group Ltd Unsubscribe link was archived SIX times:
May 21st, 2017: https://web.archive.org/web/20170521115911/http://b2b-data.co.uk/interspire/unsubscribe.php?M=1&C=c1304cf4767c7882b3045bb85de0f930&L=1&N=3
June 23rd, 2017: https://web.archive.org/web/20170623183252/http://b2b-data.co.uk/interspire/unsubscribe.php?M=1&C=c1304cf4767c7882b3045bb85de0f930&L=1&N=3
July 26th, 2017: https://web.archive.org/web/20170726002333/http://b2b-data.co.uk/interspire/unsubscribe.php?M=1&C=c1304cf4767c7882b3045bb85de0f930&L=1&N=3
August 26th, 2017: https://web.archive.org/web/20170826185543/http://b2b-data.co.uk/interspire/unsubscribe.php?M=1&C=c1304cf4767c7882b3045bb85de0f930&L=1&N=3
September 29th, 2017: https://web.archive.org/web/20170929034650/http://b2b-data.co.uk/interspire/unsubscribe.php?M=1&C=c1304cf4767c7882b3045bb85de0f930&L=1&N=3
October 30th, 2017: https://web.archive.org/web/20171030135946/http://b2b-data.co.uk/interspire/unsubscribe.php?M=1&C=c1304cf4767c7882b3045bb85de0f930&L=1&N=3
What this tells us is BEFORE May 21st, 2017 this URL could be found somewhere on the Internet allowing the archive website to archive this URL. This is very important, a link to this URL had to be online before May 21st, 2017.
I received 2 SPAM emails with this same unsubscribe URL, the first time was May 23rd, 2017 and the second time June 6th, 2017.
You can see from the 6 archived URLs above that URL format had already been unsubscribed BEFORE Web Consultancy Group Ltd SPAMMED me on May 23rd and June 6th, 2017. If I was indeed subscriber 1 of list 1 my email address was already marked unsubscribed at least 2 days before the first SPAM email and about 2 weeks before the second SPAM email was sent!
Conclusion, that was a fake unsubscribe link to placate users naive enough to believe SPAM emailers like Web Consultancy would remove their email address from their SPAM list! More I look into Stephen Hall’s businesses, more I see a pattern of unethical business practices.
Continue Reading What is SPAM Email?