Accrington Web - View Single Post

Pauline01UK · 13-10-2005, 21:40

This is what I have found out about hoax emails pertaining to paying for MSN messenger... I copied and pasted for all to read. You can check the page out for yourself if you wish..

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/msn-petition.html

FW: Please Read THIS. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT

MSN is planning to take away MSN Messenger by September 14th, 2005. If you want to keep our MSN Messenger free of charge, send this email to everyone you know. It will be used as a petition. Each person you send this to counts as one signature. If this petition gets 500,000 signatures they will keep MSN Messenger. If they do not receive 500,000 votes you will have to pay £5.00 to have Messenger (per month). If you don't care about this then please for everyone's sake help out a little. Thank you for your time and consideration and please help MSN beat their vote PLEASE - Copy and paste this onto a new letter add you name below and send it to EVERYONE you know. I don't want to have to pay for it. Do you?

Commentary:
The message shown above is just the latest version of an aging hoax. Some person (read moron) has been kind enough to plug in a current date. Otherwise, the hoax is virtually identical to versions that have been circulating since 1998. MSN has not announced plans to start charging for its free MSN Messenger service. Even if the company did consider charging for the service, it certainly would not base its decision on how many times a particular email was forwarded.

The hoax message claims that the message "will be used as a petition" and that every person who receives the message "counts as one signature". However, the message does not say how these "signatures" will be counted. No central collection point for all the "votes" is specified. The implication is that the messages will be somehow reliably tracked over the course of many thousands of successive forwards. Such claims are pure nonsense and not even Microsoft could manage such a feat.

13-10-2005, 21:40	#19
Pauline01UK Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Accy (where-else) Posts: 48 Liked: 0 times Rep Power: 0	Re: Charging for messenger? This is what I have found out about hoax emails pertaining to paying for MSN messenger... I copied and pasted for all to read. You can check the page out for yourself if you wish.. http://www.hoax-slayer.com/msn-petition.html FW: Please Read THIS. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT MSN is planning to take away MSN Messenger by September 14th, 2005. If you want to keep our MSN Messenger free of charge, send this email to everyone you know. It will be used as a petition. Each person you send this to counts as one signature. If this petition gets 500,000 signatures they will keep MSN Messenger. If they do not receive 500,000 votes you will have to pay £5.00 to have Messenger (per month). If you don't care about this then please for everyone's sake help out a little. Thank you for your time and consideration and please help MSN beat their vote PLEASE - Copy and paste this onto a new letter add you name below and send it to EVERYONE you know. I don't want to have to pay for it. Do you? Commentary: The message shown above is just the latest version of an aging hoax. Some person (read moron) has been kind enough to plug in a current date. Otherwise, the hoax is virtually identical to versions that have been circulating since 1998. MSN has not announced plans to start charging for its free MSN Messenger service. Even if the company did consider charging for the service, it certainly would not base its decision on how many times a particular email was forwarded. The hoax message claims that the message "will be used as a petition" and that every person who receives the message "counts as one signature". However, the message does not say how these "signatures" will be counted. No central collection point for all the "votes" is specified. The implication is that the messages will be somehow reliably tracked over the course of many thousands of successive forwards. Such claims are pure nonsense and not even Microsoft could manage such a feat. __________________ Take care cause I care .. Those who cant have me hate me, Those who got me can't handle me, Those who abuse me lose me - And then, there's people like you who cant refuse me.