Fact or Fiction

[Barrie Yates]

I am not passing comment on either of these two sites - have a look and make up your own minds

http://Snopes.Com

http://www.truthorfiction.com

They were passed to me through an ex-services organisation, and here are the comments that came with them.

1) Any time you see an e-mail that says:


"forward this on to '10' (or however-many) of your friends",


"sign this petition, or you'll get bad luck, good luck",
"you'll see something funny on your screen after you send it", or whatever


it almost ALWAYS has an e-mail tracker program attached that tracks the cookies
and e-mail addresses 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-mail addresses to use in


SPAM e-mails, or sell to other spammers.






Even when you get e-mails that demand you send the email on


if you're not ashamed of God/Jesus .....


that's e-mail tracking and they're playing on our conscience. These


people don't care how they get your email addresses - just as long as
they get them.


Also, e-mails that talk about a missing child or a child with an
incurable disease - "how would you feel if that was your child".....



e-mail tracking!!! Ignore them and don't participate!








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-mailsin the future!








If you have been sending out (FORWARDING) the above kinds of e-mail, you now


know why you get so much SPAM!


Do yourself a favor and STOP adding your name(s) to those types of listings
regardless of how inviting they might sound or make you feel guilty if you
don't!... it's all about getting email addresses - nothing more!




You may think you are supporting a GREAT cause, but you are NOT!




Instead, you will be getting tons of junk mail later and very possibly a virus
attached! Plus, you are helping the spammers get rich! Let's not make it
easy for them!






Also:


E-mail petitions are NOT acceptable to White House, Congress or any other
organization -i.e. Social Security, etc. To be acceptable, petitions must have a


signed signature and full address of the person signing the petition,


so this is a waste of time and you're just helping the e-mail trackers.








Please read the full story here: snopes.com: Internet Petitions








Also: when forwarding mail, delete the senders name and e-mail address before
forwarding. You can do this after you click "forward," then just backspace the
names and e-mail addresses of those who sent it to you off of the e-mail that you are forwarding.