Please delete my email address, my comments, and my disclaimer (at the bottom) before you forward this on. Thanks! -- S
*HOW TO FORWARD EMAIL* PLEASE READ THIS BECAUSE IT CAN HELP EVERYONE ON YOUR ADDRESS LIST ! ! ! ! ! ! Although you may know how to send e-mail, do forward it to those in your address book as they may not know how to forward e-mails. EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS!!!!! THERE IS SOME REALLY GOOD INFORMATION HERE. ________________________________ IMPORTANT!! HOW TO FORWARD EMAIL APPROPRIATELY Do you really know how to forward e-mails? 50% of us do; 50% DO NOT. Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate it? ________________________________ Every time you forward an e-mail there is information left over from the people who got the message before you, namely their e-mail addresses & names. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds, and builds, and builds, and all it takes is for some poor sap to get a virus, and his or her computer can send that virus to every e-mail address that has come across his computer. Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell them or send junk mail to them in the hopes that you will go to the site and he will make five cents for each hit. That's right, all of that inconvenience over a nickel! ________________________________ How do you stop it? Well, there are several easy steps: ________________________________ (1) When you forward an e-mail, DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message (at the top). That's right, DELETE them. Highlight them and delete them, backspace them, cut them, whatever it is you know how to do. It only takes a second. You MUST click the "Forward" button first and then you will have full editing capabilities against the body and headers of the message. If you don't click on "Forward" first, you won't be able to edit the message at all. ________________________________ (2) Whenever you send an e-mail to more than one person, do NOT use the To: or Cc: fields for adding e-mail addresses. Always use the Bcc: (blind carbon copy) field for listing the e-mail addresses. This is the way the people you send to will only see their own e-mail address. If you don't see your Bcc: option, click on where it says To: and your address list will appear. Highlight the address and choose Bcc: and that's it, it's that easy. When you send to Bcc: your message will automatically say "Undisclosed Recipients" in the "To:" field of the people who receive it. ________________________________ (3) Remove any "FW:" in the subject line. You can re-name the subject if you wish or even fix spelling. ________________________________ (4) ALWAYS hit your Forward button from the actual e-mail you are reading. Ever get those e-mails that you have to open 10 attachments to read the one page with the information on it? By Forwarding from the actual page you wish someone to view, you stop them from having to open many e-mails just to see what you sent. ________________________________ (5) Have you ever gotten an email that is a petition? It states a position and asks you to add your name and address and to forward it to 10 or 15 people or your entire address book. The email can be forwarded on and on and can collect thousands of names and email addresses. A FACT: The completed petition is actually worth a couple of bucks to a professional spammer because of the wealth of valid names and email addresses contained therein. If you want to support the petition, send it as your own personal letter to the intended recipient. Your position may carry more weight as a personal letter than a laundry list of names and email addresses on a petition. (Actually, if you think about it, who's supposed to send the petition in to whatever cause it supports? And don't believe the ones that say that the email is being traced, it just ain't so!) ________________________________ (6) One of the main ones I hate is the one that says something like, "Send this email to 10 people and you'll see something great run across your screen." Or, sometimes they'll just tease you by saying something really cute will happen. IT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!!!!! (Trust me, I'm still seeing some of the same ones that I waited on 10 years ago!) I don't let the bad luck ones scare me either, they get trashed. (Could be why I haven't won the lottery??) ________________________________ (7) Before you forward an Amber Alert, or a Virus Alert, or some of the other ones floating around nowadays, check them out before you forward them. Most of them are junk mailthat've been circling the net for YEARS! Just about everything you receive in an email that is in question can be checked out at Snopes. Just go to http://www.snopes.com/ <http://www.snopes.com/> ________________________________ It's really easy to find out if it's real or not. If it's not, please don't pass it on. So please, in the future, let's stop the junk mail and the viruses. ________________________________ Finally, here's an idea!!! Let's send this to everyone that needs it, (but strip my address off first, please). This is something that SHOULD be forwarded. ______________________________ VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION: I have been very suspicious of these types of forwards for a long time. The man that sent this information is a computer tech. He spends a lot of time clearing the junk off computers for people and listens to complaints about speed. All forwards are not bad, just some. Be sure you read the very last paragraph. Thanks, _________________________________________ By now, I suspect everyone is familiar with snopes.com and/or truthorfiction.com for determining whether information received via email is just that: true/false or fact/fiction. Both are excellent sites. Advice from snopes.com VERY IMPORTANT!! 1) Any time you see an email that says "forward this on to '10' (or however many) of your friends", "sign this petition", or "you'll get bad luck" or "you'll get good luck" or "you'll see something funny on your screen after you send it" or whatever --- it almost always has an email tracker program attached that tracks the cookies and emails 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' email addresses to use in SPAM emails or sell to other spammers. Even when you get emails that demand you send the email on if you're not ashamed of God/Jesus --- that is email tracking, and they are playing on our conscience. These people don't care how they get your email addresses - just as long as they get them. Also, emails that talk about a missing child or a child with an incurable disease "how would you feel if that was your child" --- email tracking. Ignore them and don't participate! 2) Almost all emails 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 email is, is a way to get names and 'cookie' tracking information for telemarketers and spammers -- to validate active email 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 you will be rewarded by not getting thousands of spam emails in the future! Do yourself a favor and STOP adding your name(s) to those types of listing regardless how inviting they might sound! Or make you feel guilty if you don't! It's all about getting email addresses and 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, we are helping the spammers get rich! Let's not make it easy for them! ALSO: Email petitions are NOT acceptable to 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 are just helping the email trackers. ---------------------------------- -- *Any and all forwards sent by Sharon Lee are being passed on without prejudice, i.e., without passing judgment, right, wrong, or indifferent. I send only a fraction of a fraction of the forwards I receive. All God-given Rights Reserved, into perpetuity. **Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O UNION, strong and great! Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate! -- Longfellow (1807 - 1882)* "Following the path of least resistance is what makes rivers and men crooked." --Unknown
