For those of you who think some of your e-mail buddies could learn a thing or two about e-mail etiquette.
-----Original Message-----
From: I didn't listen to the e-mail
To: Everyone and their brother (Hi spammers)
Sent: Because people should know
Subject: Email handling - please read and delete my name & address per below
I am sending some instruction on e-mails to you. You can print them and check them out at your leisure.
IMPORTANT!! HOW TO HANDLE E-MAIL APPROPRIATELY
A friend who is a computer expert received the following directly from a system administrator for a corporate system. It is an excellent message that ABSOLUTELY applies to ALL of us who send e-mails. Please read the short letter below, even if you're sure you already follow proper procedures.
Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Don't 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. Sometimes even e-signatures with addresses and phone numbers.
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 they will make five cents for each hit. That's right, all of that inconvenience over five cents.
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. Then scroll to the bottom and make sure no names addresses or phone numbers from you or anyone else is left on the e-mail either.
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 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 e-mails just to see what you sent.
(5) Have you ever gotten an e-mail 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 address 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 isn’t so!)
(6) There are also those e-mails that say something like, 'Send this e-mail 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.
This will not 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 mail that's been circling the net for YEARS! Just about everything you receive in an e-mail that is in question can be checked out. Just go to www.truthorfiction.com or http://www.snopes.com/ these sites have search areas where you can type in a few key words and bring up what you want to see.
It’s really easy to find out if it's real or not. If it's not, please do not pass it on. If it is true, then pass it on. If there is something saying Snopes verifies this or seen on Truth or Fiction, go to the site to check it out. Please, in the future, let's stop the junk mail and viruses being passed via forwards.
(8) Remember, as easy as it was for you to delete previous e-mail addresses for you, it is just as easy for someone to change the e-mail itself. What started with certain information can be changed very easily.
(9) Links in e-mails can lead to pages you don’t want to go. Please be very careful clicking on links in e-mails if you aren’t certain where the original e-mail came from.
As an example I can type www.snopes.com but if you click on that link you will see that it takes you to Google instead. So, please be very careful.
E-mails are great fun and can be informative, but please be aware that not everyone that uses e-mail has your best interests at heart.
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