Advice from Snopes

Here is a nice little tidbit of information that came my way this morning. So if any of you are wondering why I didn't return something to you that said something like "if I don't get this back I'll....or, "See how many flowers you can get back", or

" Forward this to 10 people in the next 5 mins. Or something bad will happen to you", etc.

The following is why I don't send them back.

Advice from Snopes.com

1) Any time you see an E-Mail that says forward this on to '10' of your friends, or 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 (PLEASE) 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 Congress 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 here:

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/internet.asp

thanks ssc, i delete anything that says send to 10 ppl for good luck or whatever, or send to ppl if u love Jesus, trying to make some ppl feel guilty not to, but i dont, so thanks, im sending this to all on my addy list, as they send me this all the time, take care

as i began to send this article to friends, on email send to 10 ppl, first let me say i dont do that, i have been on aol for i think 12 or 13 years and i cant seem to stop friends from sending me all that , the one like i better get this back , or if u love Jesus u will do this or that, I DONT DO any of those. i realize its just a way to spam email, by playing on ppls guilt. but i stoped before sending and decided to click the snopes link, and i did not read it real close, but i think what i got out of it is email pettions do not work , so avoid them , and i dont do them either. but since i dont think i saw anything in the snopes article about the send to 10 and a email tracking program and cookie thing, i decided to dig deeper, i went to what i use " about .com" and used their search engine and typed in " email tracking programs, what i got back was not about send to 10 stuff but mostly the get this prize if u sent to 10 it basicallly said there is no email tracking programs, so i went to snopes search engine, and typed it in. and i got a list of them, u can go to the link in what im replying to and use the search engine, it comes back with a list, but anyway i chose one off that list to post the url, still mainly its the emails on companys. i have not found one about what ppl send to each other, lordy i still get the aol microsoft, will send u money trying out a new email thing, how many years has that been out, but thats not the subject,, anyway i will put this link in, note the part about email tracking programs, if anyone can find something i missed, post it, i would love to email my addy book, about it . it would seem ppl would understand all these emails to send to 10 ppl etc, are bogus email spam . but in all these years it does not seem to stop ppl in my addy book from sending them, anyway its fun to research, take care,
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/billgate.asp

I always delete that stuff too from my inbox, I don't get much of it to begin with, but when I do I always delete it. There is no doubt in my mind that tracking cookies are associated with those type emails, it stands to reason from SSC's post to avoid sending that stuff by "forwarding" it or replying to it. I've always just deleted the stuff instead of trying to figure out what their motive was, its easier to just delete and forget it. I also after receiving that kind of email, I put them in my email "Block" list, and then my email client will automatically put further emails from them into my "SPAM" folder that is automatically deleted every week. I have the same AOL email account I've had when I first got online like 10 years ago, I used AOL to get online with when you had to download their software in order to get online via dialup, which I still do for my older PC, but my new one I use roadrunner highspeed cable modem, but I still can access the email without the software on this new PC by simply signing into the account.

I like AOL email, I hate MSN (Hotmail) but I have one of those too, but rarely use it.

the article in the link i posted did say in certain cases u can tell if a person received a letter, but not in a long forward, i think is what it said, this is just my thought. im assuming but knowing if a person receives a letter, is like on my aol email, i can highlight a email i sent, then click " staus" and it will tell me if that person has opened that letter . sometimes it say "not read yet", and sometimes they have and tells me the time they opened it, and if they dont open it and delete without opening it , it tells me they deleted it. and of course if they have not opened it yet, i can click " unsend" and it will take back the letter, and tell me the letter has been unsent,, but if they have opened it i cant take it back,
but this must be between aol to aol mail only not internet mail,, at one time it included walmart mail and CompuServe, but i don't even know if those other services are in business, but they all used the software aol used.anyway just a thought as to what they ment on certain cases u can tell if a person received an email, but im not sure what i said is what they meant. take care

Yeah your right rosco, On AOL, you can only check the status of an email if it came from another AOL email account, it doesn't work with email from other places. I've used that feature before its a good one.

Do you know that I have never sent a email out as a "group email" from a list? I've only sent individual emails to people.lol I've received a few before, but have never sent or forward one. I don't have any Instant Messenger software on my pc's either, I uninstalled what came with this one when I bought it which was "NetMeeting" a windows XP installation (not vista). It uses the H.323 protocol for video and audio conferencing which I have no use for, if I ever find a need for that sort of thing I will download it. But I'm not much of a IM kind of guy anyway, although I have used them before in the past.

well years ago i imed tons with ppl i met online in aol chat rooms, some are still email friends, but about the only person i im is my nephew, when i see him on my buddy list, i just dont have time now, i do email some i met 12 years ago,i do forward jokes to a list i will compile off my addy book, or i may just copy and paste it to certain ppl,

I never forward an e-mail , if it is worth sending to friends I CC&P the body of the message and only send it, I hate mass mailings with lord knows whose e-mail address tacked on. I do IM but usually with grandkids. I despise MSN all the way around it is slow as hell.

well i use to never forward even a joke i would copy and paste, but i have forwarded some just in the last few months since i have been kinda in a hurry as of late, is the only reason, but as a rule i dont ,,