Advice from Snopes.com 1) Any time you see an E-Mail that says forward this on to '10' of your friends, sign this petition, or you'll get bad luck, good luck, or whatever, it almost always has an E-Mail tracker program attached that tracks the cookies and E-Mails of those folks you forward to. The host sender is getting a copy each time it gets forwarded and then is able to get lists of 'active' E-Mails to use in SPAM E-Mails, or sell to other spammers. 2) Almost all E-Mails that ask you to add your name and forward on to others are similar to that mass letter years ago that asked people to send business cards to the little kid in Florida who wanted to break the Guinness Book of Records for the most cards. All it was, and all any of this type of E-Mail is, is a way to get names and 'cookie' tracking information for telemarketers and spammers - - to validate active E-Mail accounts for their own profitable purposes. You can do your friends and family members a GREAT favor by sending this information to them; you will be providing a service to your friends, and will be rewarded by not getting thousands of spam E-Mails in the future! If you have been sending out (FORWARDING ) the above kinds of E-Mail, now you know why you get so much SPAM! Do yourself a favor and STOP adding your name(s) to those types of listings regardless how inviting they might sound! You may think you are supporting a GREAT cause, but you are NOT in the long run. Instead, you will be getting tons of junk mail later! Plus, we are helping the spammers get rich! Let's don't make it easy for them! Also: E-Mail petitions are NOT acceptable to Congres s or any other organization. To be acceptable, petitions must have a signed signature and full address of the person signing the petition. Read the full story he re: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/internet.asp (saw it on another forum.. why not post it here since we have so many members.. -Daniel)
GREAT INFO!!!!!! I try telling people/friends this all the time and you would not believe the negitive feedback i get from then when I ask then NOT to send this stuff to me..
Quote:Me, too! I am so overwhelmed by my inbox that I've started deleting anything that even looks like it might be forwarded schlock. I know I'm missing some gems but I'm smothering in the dross!
The worst is when you try to explain to people why you don't want these forwards, and they complain, "well, how are we going to stay in touch then?!?" Uh, maybe send me a personal email? You click "New Email" at the top of your email program, enter my address from your contacts list, and, uh, write something original about how you are actually doing, what's going on in your life...sheesh, it's not that hard... I've known friends who got furiously angry with me for asking them to send me an actual personal email rather than mass forwards to everyone in their contact list. Also, the abuse of the "Reply to all" function...oy... And then when you send 'em the Snopes link disproving that particular urban legend, they get all mad and say, "well it could have happened, you never know!" Um, no. It could not have happened, and you can't live your life in fear that monster alligators will jump out of the toilet and grab your behind. Because it just doesn't happen. Nor has any human ever gotten pregnant with lobster eggs by nefarious means, possibly my favorite urban legend of all time.
Quote:But my boss' sister knows this guy whose cousin told him her best friend got grabbed by a toilet gator!