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Netiquette UnchainedNov 19 '10 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Personally, I would advise you to delete chain letters on sight. However, if you must forward chain letters, break the chain. Dear Friend, I am writing to you on an important point of netiquette. The Internet is the wild, wild west. There are a lot of nice people out there, but there are also spammers, stalkers, thieves, perverts, and all manner of creeps. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU GIVE SOMEONE'S EMAIL ADDRESS AWAY UNLESS YOU EITHER HAVE THEIR PERMISSION OR YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY SURE THAT THEY WILL NOT MIND. For this reason, whenever you send an email to a group of people, unless you are sure that they all know each other, you should not write to them using TO: (or CC: for that matter). Instead you should write to them using BCC: (which stands for Blind Carbon Copy). The email will still go to everyone on the list, but the people that receive it will not see each others email addresses. You can put the entire recipient list in BCC:. However, some email software erroneously insists that you have a TO:. If yours does this, simply put yourself as the TO: recipient. Your email address is going out as the FROM: anyway, so no harm done. THERE IS NO MORE IMPORTANT TIME TO USE BCC: THAN WHEN FORWARDING A CHAIN LETTER. Personally, I almost never forward chain letters. They are mostly scams and a waste of bandwidth. Intentionally or otherwise, they are a major source of viruses. Sometimes they contain a meaningful thought, and I possibly, may, might, maybe pass it on, but I usually don't. Most net experts feel the same way. The problem with forwarding a chain letter is that you are giving the recipient your email address and permission to forward it to everyone they know. If, when you sent it, you did not use BCC: for your recipient list, you are also giving them permission to forward all your friends email addresses too. THIS IS A MAJOR NO-NO. YOU CAN GIVE YOUR OWN ADDRESS AWAY IF YOU WANT, BUT YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO GIVE AWAY MINE. Sooner or later, someone is going to unknowingly forward the letter to a spammer, a thief, or some other type of creep. Next thing you know, you are getting so much spam that your address is unusable, or you are getting bills for Internet services you did not buy. Worse still, because net experts rarely forward emails, you probably got the chain letter from someone who is net inept, and so it contains a list of the emails that the person that sent it, sent it to... and on and on, backwards in a long chain. I have received emails in the past containing well over 1000 addresses. Personally, I would advise you to delete chain letters on sight. However, if you must forward chain letters, break the chain. AFTER YOU HIT THE FORWARD KEY, GO THROUGH THE OUTGOING EMAIL AND DELETE OUT ALL THE PRIOR SENDERS AND THEIR LISTS OF NAMES. Yes, be a good person, and spend a few minutes protecting the privacy of folks that were too net unaware to protect their friends and themselves. By doing this and using BCC: for your own list, the only email address you are giving away is your own. THERE IS NO EASY WAY TO PREVENT THE FOLKS YOU SEND THE EMAIL TO FROM FORWARDING YOUR NAME TO EVERYONE. "Ay, there's the rub", as Shakespeare once wrote. This, of course, is why I almost never forward a chain letter. Some folks keep an address on a free mail server like Yahoo.com for this purpose, which at least keeps your private email address safe. Safe, that is, until a close friend forwards a chain letter to 50 people, using your private address and not using BCC:, and thus inadvertently mails your private address to the world. And so it goes... I hope my writing this to you does not upset you. It shouldn't. Everyone on email makes this mistake, and, sooner or later, they get a letter like this from a friend. I know I did. The big thing is, now you know. So, learn and move forward. Ed  |
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