The primitive spamtrap
Updated on April 21, 2025
Other commonly encountered names
Primary spamtrap, pristine spam trap, classic spam trap, active spamtrap, honeypot, honey pot
The principle
Originally, this is the only type of spamtrap that existed (hence its name of primitive spamtrap).
And it’s the worst of the worst. Primitive spamtraps are designed to trap genuine spammers, i.e. those who dare to collect email addresses by scraping, in disregard of the current legislation. It should be noted that collecting addresses using scraping software does not respect either the principle of prior consent (opt-in, required for B2C communications), or the principle of the right to object at the time of collection (opt-out, tolerated for B2B).
Primitive spamtraps are created by ISPs (e.g. Orange), security solution providers (e.g. Trend Micro), or anti-spam organizations (e.g. SpamHaus). They are placed on websites or forums. These addresses are often (but not always) invisible to the naked eye, the main goal being to trap scraping bots, capable of retrieving addresses displayed in white on white or only visible in the HTML code of a web page.
How to protect yourself from them?
It goes without saying, never collect addresses using bots! File exchanges between partners are also an excellent way to introduce spamtraps into your own files. Even if you trust them, you never really know how a partner file was actually put together, and unfortunately, nasty surprises are common.
Finally, “low-cost” files sold on the web are offered at such prices because they are most often put together effortlessly, by scraping, even partially. Therefore, acquiring this type of file is very dangerous for your sender reputation, and consequently for our router reputation. This is why the use of such files is strictly prohibited by the OxiMailing license agreement.