Demographics
Inc.:
Spammers

Over the past ten years, I've gotten a large number of unsolicited e-mails advertising an alleged "Demographics service" from a company variously identifying itself as Demographics Inc., Infocharms Inc., New Edge Networks, Trans-Edge Networks, Demographic Data Inc., U.S. Census Inc., and 1-800-577-6717.

Their apparent message is simple: they wish me to use their business, and they want me to believe that they have a large database of marks for advertisement, which they call "Commerce patterns", "Geocoding", "Demographic Data Center", "Consumer Expenditures", "Block level estimates", and many other things using many domains to sneak past spam filters.

Their ARIN.NET entry lists MATT MATESSA as sole contact. The e-mail address for him has been invalid since I first started receiving spam from them. In early 2009, I called their telephone number of record and spoke to Matt, who said he hadn't been afilliated with them for many years.

They subscribe e-mail addresses without permission, and so far have shown no sign of ever honoring an unsubscribe request, though every spam of theirs includes a link to "Click here to unsubscribe". Many spam-trackers believe this kind of link is used primarily to validate target e-mail addresses.

I have evidence of their activities which may be used to configure a spam blocker; I recommend blocking IP block 64.232.0.0 - 64.232.255.255.

Matthew H. Fields