FWD: HOW TO FORWARD E-MAIL APPROPRIATELY

thanks chantelle

HOW TO FORWARD 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 really know how to forward e-mails? 50% of us do; 50% DO NOT .


Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do 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. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses

builds, and builds, and builds, and all it takes is for some poor
person
to get a virus, and his or her computer can send that virus to every

e-mail address that has come across his or her 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 he will make five cents
for
each hit. That's right, all of that inconvenience over a nickel!





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 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-mai! l ad dresses. 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, &l t; I>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 rename 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 s! top 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 e-mail can be
forwarded
on and on and can collect thousands of names and e-mail 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 e-mail

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 e-mail 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 e-mail is being traced,
it
just ain't so!)

(6) One of the main ones I hate is the ones that say that 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 IT AIN'T GONNA 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 foward

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 at Snopes. Just go to http://www.snopes.com


Its really easy to find out if it's real or not. If it's not, please

don't pass it on.

So please, in the future, let's stop the junk mail and the viruses.


Finally, here's an idea! Let's send this to everyone we know (but
strip my address off first, please). This is something that SHOULD be forwarded.