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Sunday, June 17, 2012

IS THIS EMAIL FACT OR FICTION?

Is This Email Safe

Have you ever wondered if an email is safe to open? You receive heaps of emails per day –some are just business and some are from trusted friends who are sharing a laugh or supporting a ‘good cause’. But can these emails be harmful?
The answer is – YES they can!

Email Tracker Programs

Email tracking programs are designed to track the *cookies and email addresses of the contacts you forward messages on to.  These Host senders don't care how they get your email addresses - just as long as they get them.  Ignore them and don't participate!

*Cookie; a small piece of data sent from a website and stored in your web browser while you are browsing. When the you visit the same website in the future, the data previously stored in the cookie can be retrieved to notify the website of your previous activity


Guilty or Not Guilty?

  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"
  • demand you "send the email on if you're not ashamed of God/Jesus"
  • talk about a missing child or a child with an incurable disease "how would you feel if that was your child"
Or anything similar playing on our conscience  - that is email tracking
These types of emails almost always has an Email Tracker Program attached to it.
This means that the ‘host’ sender (the people who attached the program originally)  is getting a copy each time the message gets forwarded. The host is then able to steal lists of 'active' email addresses to use in SPAM emails or sell to other Spammers.

Petitions

Almost all emails that ask you to add your name and forward on to others have a tracking program attached.  Email petitions are NOT acceptable to government or any other organisation - e.g. 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.


For Example : a mass letter sent years ago, 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.


By Signing a petition 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 with a virus attached!  Plus, you are helping the Spammers get rich!  Do not make it easy for them!


So... STOP adding your name(s) to those types of listing regardless how inviting they might sound!
Don’t feel guilty if you don't! It's all about getting email addresses and nothing more.


Yes! You Can forward This Message On!

You can do your friends and family members a terrific favour by sending this information to them.  You will spreading the word and also reducing the thousands of spam emails you are receiving now and  in the future!


What else can I do if I am not sure?

  • Make it a practice to always delete all previous names from your emails before forwarding!
  • Send emails via the BCC field -then everyone after you doesn't get your friend's email address
  • Open up a Gmail account - Gmail is a Google product and serves as a fabulous spam filter

You can read more about how in the My Computer Tutor blog on How to Reduce Spam

If you need help with any of this please do not hesitate to contact me

Yours in Email Safety and dedication to spam reduction,
Kim-Denyse
My Computer Tutor
www.mycomputertutor.net.au  kim@mycomputertutor.net.au




REF: snopes.com

3 comments:

  1. Thanks Kim! its great to read something that makes sense and actually tells you what to do and what not to! Now i will be a lot more aware of how i forward an email and if I should share kit at all

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello Kim,

    Just to introduce myself as My Computer Tutor UK.

    All the best,

    Colin

    www.mycomputertutor.co.uk

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