Thursday, November 10, 2011

E-MAIL TRACKER PROGRAMS - AVOID THEM AT ALL COSTS!



By now, I suspect everyone is familiar with http://www.snopes.com/ and/or http://www.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 of 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.

So, effectively immediately, I will no longer forward any of this junk so please don't send it to me.  In the past, I have always felt slightly guilty if I didn't do it, but not any more.  So, I guess that means that Jesus will no longer love me because he thinks I'm ashamed of him, I won't be rich in three days, the issue won't be recognized because I didn't sign the petition, I don't really love my country, good luck will never knock on my door, and my genitals may fall off.  Life can be difficult, for sure, but I say to hell with spammers and I hope you will too.

 






















3 comments:

  1. great post mikey! i will send it to a few people who are forever forwarding those types of e-mails to me.

    btw, if you would like to get the weekly e-mail i send from japan, let me know by writing to me at tafreeburn@netscape.com i promise you don't have to forward it and your ..... will not fall off ;-)

    have a gret weekend!

    teresa in nagoya

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  2. Thanks for the reference to the verification sites. I receive quite a few email containing the most incredible tales. My first reaction is "What idiot would believe this?" Then I read the "From" line and answer my own question. I am surprised people put their own credibility at risk by forwarding such trash.

    The most recent was a literally idiotic piece calling for support of the Congressional Reform Act of 2011. There is no such proposal. And anyone who managed to squeak through the eighth grade would realize the various proposals are contradictory or simply illogical. Like you, I suspect it was an email addressing-farming piece.

    I have stopped being nice about these things. If someone knows me well enough to send me a piece of trash, they should be adult enough to admit they made an egregious error.

    Here ends the lesson.

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  3. Hi all...

    Email headers can also be copied and pasted from any email program. E-mail tracking service that tracks e-mail you sent. Sends you notification when e-mail gets opened, find out when and where recipients read your e-mails. Thanks a lot.

    ReplyDelete