I know this has been around before but it's still good info so I hope you'll take
the time to read it. This is probably some of the best email advice there is.
With all the spam, trojans, worms and viruses going around this is one of the
best ways to stop them. I've been doing this for several years. If you're
already doing your forwarded emails this way that's great.... if not then give
this a try.
Please take a
little time and read this important email information about sending or
forwarding mail to your friends. It's valuable and common sense advice, and
something everybody who emails should know and follow.
Advice about
forwarding emails
A friend who's a computer expert received the
following from a system administrator for a corporate system. It is an excellent
message that absolutely applies to all of us who send emails. Please read all
the information, even if you're sure you already follow proper procedures. Do
you really know how to forward emails?
Only 50% of people
do.
You may know someone on your list who sends you emails with tons
of names forwarded – please send this on to them.
DDo you wonder why you
get viruses or junk mail and hate it? Every time you forward an email there is
information left over from the people who got it before you. Namely their email
addresses and names. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses
build and build, until all it takes is for some poor sap to get a virus and his/
her computer can send that virus to every email address that has come across his
computer. Or, someone can take all of those addresses and sell or send them junk
mail in the hopes that you'll go to the site.
How do you stop it?
There are several easy steps. Try the following if you aren't doing it
already:
(1) When you forward an email, delete all of the
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 'Forward' first, you won't be
able to edit the message at all.
(2) Whenever you send an email to
more than one person, do not use the To: or Cc: fields for adding
addresses. Always use the Bcc: (blind carbon copy) field for listing
the addresses. This way the people you send to will only see their own email
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 rename
the subject if you wish or even fix spelling.
(4) Always hit your
Forward button from the actual email you are reading. Ever get those emails that
you have to open 10 pages 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 emails 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 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
addresses. A FACT: The petition is actually worth money to a professional
spammer because of the wealth of names and addresses contained there. Do not put
your email address on any petition. 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 addresses on a
petition. (And don't believe the ones that say
that the email is not being traced, it just ain't so!)
Some of the
other emails to delete and not forward are:
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 'some-thing
really cute will happen.' IT”S STUPID STUFF AND POTENTIALLY VIRUS-INFECTED!
(People new to emailing don't understand these same emails have been around
for about 15-20 years!)
Don't let the bad
luck ones scare you, trash them. If you believe that crap, you are doing a
disservice to other people online.
Before
you forward an 'Amber Alert', or a 'Virus Alert', or some of the other emails
floating around now-a-days, check them out before you forward them. Most of
them are junk mail that's been circling for YEARS! Just about everything you
receive in an email that is in question can be checked out at these sites. Snopes.com is also a site to check, but it’s been found to
be politically biased and therefore unreliable in many
circumstances.
http://www.truthorfiction.com/
http://www.purportal.com/
http://www.scambusters.org/legends.html
It's
really easy to find out if it's real or not. If it's not, don't pass it
on.
So if any of you ever wonder why I don'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 minutes. or
something bad will happen to you', etc.
The following is
why I don't send them back. 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.
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 and touchy-feely 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.
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 we know (but strip my address off
first, please). This is something that should be forwarded, so please do it.
Thanks! Another way is to highlight this article, Copy from the Edit field, open
a new email and Paste it from the Edit field.
Be smart! Control your
online life!