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Here's an e-mail I sent out a while ago, which pretty much sums up my thoughts about SPAM. I got one of those cutesy e-mails from a friend-of-a-friend, which contained about 60 e-mail addresses in the "carbon-copy" list. Feel free to cut-and-paste and/or edit this to your content... Hello all, My name is Scott Hall, and I live in Victoria, B.C., Canada. I'm pretty sure none of you know who I am, and I'm pretty sure I don't know any of you. (I send this e-mail out as a response to any of those sappy chain letters, so if I actually DO know you, please don't take offence.) So, you ask, why am I writing to all 60-something of you...? Well, I got all your e-mail addresses from one of those forwarded chain-letter type e-mails. Which one is irrelevant, as I don't want to point fingers or lay blame. The simple fact is that the e-mail in question contained all of your e-mail addresses. They were all piled up in the "Forward:" line. Now, if I was a shady fly-by-night internet marketer, or in other words, a spammer, your e-mails would already be distributed amongst thousands of spammers' e-mail lists. And now you would be susceptible to getting more junk e-mails. I would say that approximately 80-85% of a spammer's distribution list is acquired by processing and compiling all those e-mail addresses that pile up in chain letters. Perhaps you hope for better luck, perhaps greater wealth, perhaps you want to 'sign' a petition for a 'good cause'. Maybe you're just looking for a chuckle by sending an "electronic hug" to a friend. But the fact is the only thing you're bringing on is spam. Chain letters are developed by and for the exclusive use of spammers, in their never ending efforts to cultivate a nice fertile orchard of e-mail addresses with which to send offers of facial hair removal cream, viagra, huge penises, stock investments, etc... They get you to forward a sappy/funny e-mail to your friends and after a while the e-mail inevitably makes it back to them and presto, they've got hundreds of e-mail addresses of potential customers and they didn't even have to work for them. You did all the work for them. Chain letters may be fun, may be sad, may make you laugh, may make you cry. But they ARE false, their only purpose IS to bring you spam. I'll say it again, in its own paragraph for everyone's benefit. ALL chain letters - happy or sad - are fake and are used exclusively to feed spam. Without exception. From the ones pleading with you to help some family find their recently abducted baby, to the ten year old dying from leukemia, to the "forward me to ten friends for good luck", to the pretty photos of kittens. These spamming companies use stories they know will tug at our emotions and make us unwilling participants in their mission. This e-mail should prove how easy this is to do. What can you do? For starters, don't forward this e-mail - I know I've sent a 'loaded gun' here, ripe with around 60 e-mail addresses - that was to make a point and show you how someone who you don't know can get ahold of your e-mail address for shady purposes. Pass on this info by word of mouth, or in individual e-mails. If you have a friend that sends out these chain-letters frequently, politely ask them to stop, and explain why. An interesting snippet of info. The average office worker spends several minutes per day dealing with spam. Worldwide, this cumulative loss in productivity results in the loss of BILLIONS of dollars every year. Not to mention the total cost in electricity just to transmit all that garbage around the globe every second of every day. Well, this ended up being alot longer than I intended. If you've read this far, thanks. All the best, Scott Hall R. Scott Hall Please do not forward me schmaltzy rubbish. |
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