Over here at LowEndBox, we’ve been covering the entire DediPath bankruptcy situation since it was only skepticism.
Most recently, we covered DediPath’s official closure at the end of August, and it almost instantly made LowEndTalk into a free-for-all — refugee offers left, right, and center.
As it stands, one of the refugee deal threads alone has had over 11,000 views and 200 comments with the original closure thread nearing 30,000 views.
It’s safe to say the collapse of DediPath was a big deal. They were a decent-sized operation.
With Ernie, the former CTO commenting over at LowEndTalk, official confirmation from the DediPath team, and hundreds of refugee offers…
People were slowly starting to come to terms with the situation and get over it.
Of course, that was until a user named @FiberSuds posted a thread only a few days after the closure titled:
“How did QuadraNet know my name and email address from dead Dedipath?”
@FiberSuds went on to explain that they had their correct name and email address, and surely; it had to come from DediPath.
A QuadraNet employee then replied the following:
Other users, however, were quick to refute this:
Does ZoomInfo Have DediPath’s Database?
I actually have a unique level of knowledge about ZoomInfo.
I can tell you the majority of the data they have on people and companies comes from being scraped from public LinkedIn profiles (the same is true for Apollo).
If we search DediPath for instance, we can see this:
I can nearly guarantee you that data comes from public-facing LinkedIn profiles.
Now, when doing my research on known DediPath customers, I can tell you — it does not seem the DediPath dataset is available on ZoomInfo.
I can’t tell you where QuadraNet (or anyone else) who has been mailing past DediPath customers has gotten the information from, but I will say it is highly, highly unlikely it came from ZoomInfo or Apollo.
Is Cold Emailing Illegal for QuadraNet?
No. It’s legal in the U.S. to send an unsolicited commercial email.
However, you do have to follow the CAN-SPAM act, so providing QuadraNet is doing that, it’s a legal activity.
Most businesses that grow large enough to have actual sales teams buy datasets all the time or acquire prospecting data from companies like ZoomInfo…
It’s not rare at all, but, it’s understandably frowned upon.
Has DediPath’s Database Been Sold?
I can neither confirm nor deny, but I would say it’s pretty likely.
Too many users were commenting on individual characteristics only made for their DediPath accounts that were continuously resurfacing by various companies sending out cold emails.
While users were quick to point out various state laws and European GDPR, the reality of the situation is that companies buy datasets for sales and marketing all the time.
In the United States, advertising ultimately is only illegal (this is a summarization) if the prospect makes it known they no longer want to receive your communications and you continue.
While ethically a poor practice, it’s not illegal… but, you might consider keeping an eye on the email you used for DediPath services and checking what hosts have recently tried to contact you (particularly in the context of urgency or refugee-related offers), and then you’ve found your culprits.
Related Posts:
- Path.net Seeks Discord Subpoena for Ex-Employee and Competitor’s Data - December 12, 2023
- Interviewing Christopher Cantwell - December 6, 2023
- Uptime Kuma: Your New Favorite Self-Hosted Uptime Monitoring Tool - December 1, 2023
I thought the CAN-SPAM act required consent _before_ any emails are sent—no?
Nope, just the ability to opt out of communication: “The CAN-SPAM Act doesn’t require initiators of commercial email to get recipients’ consent before sending them commercial email. In other words, there is no opt-in requirement. So in general, as long as you follow the “initiator” requirements of the Act, you can send email until the recipient asks to opt out. But buying lists like that can be risky. There is the possibility that addresses on the list belong to people who have already opted out of receiving email from your company. And there’s a risk that the list was put together using illegal means like address harvesting or dictionary attacks. Therefore, some companies choose to send marketing email only to people who have affirmatively asked to receive them or with whom the company already has a business relationship.” – source: https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2015/08/candid-answers-can-spam-questions
Ah I see. Thanks for the clarification!
I can’t believe a amateur hosting provider went out of business AND is giving away people’s information! I’m even more surprised they’re so well known on Low End Box. This should be the the top news headline! 🙀
Is it possible that my saved payment methods (Credit Cards) shared with somebody?
I had like 6 credit cards saved there. I was able to delete them now but curious.
Most modern processors like Stripe will only store your card token, not your actual card information (even when collected through WHMCS).
It’s useless, and I don’t see any reason to believe as of right now anything like customer card details were leaked.
Can’t say any of this surprises me and like others since I have an operate my own email servers I create very specific email aliases for all hosting business and the one used with Dedipath is the same exact one Quadranet contacted me using even though I had an almost identical email tied to prior use of Quadranet.