In our business and personal lives we take internet security seriously as it costs businesses and individuals thousands each year. If you have ever wondered how your mail address came to receive loads of spam, phishing scams or viruses, and if you would like to stop that happening then please take a few minutes to read the following information concerning the re-sending or ‘forwarding’ the emails you receive from friends and relatives.

Read the information below ... if you don't, you could be hurting yourself and your email business partners and family and friends.

By now, we hope everyone is familiar with and/or for determining whether information received via email is just that: true/false or fact/fiction - both are excellent sites. www.snopes.com www.truthorfiction.com

Advice from Snopes.com and from our own experience: Any time you see an email that says:

1. “Forward this on to '10' (or however many) of your friends”;
2. “Sign this petition, or you'll get bad luck/good luck”;
3. “You'll see something funny on your screen after you send it”;
4. “this is really funny!”;
5.  “this child is missing, needs your help”;
6. 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 because you’ll get bad luck won’t be loved by God (because emails and do either of those!?) if you don’t ... that's email tracking and they're playing on your conscience. These people don't care how they get your email addresses - just as long as they get them. ....Email Tracking!!! Ignore them and don't participate!

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 favour by sending this information to them; you will be providing a service to your friends, and will be rewarded by not getting thousands of spam emails in the future! If you have been sending out (FORWARDING) the above kinds of email, now you know why you get so much SPAM! STOP adding your name(s) to those types of listings regardless how inviting they might sound, or how guilty they make you feel if you don't! It's all about getting email addresses - 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, you are helping the spammers get rich! Let's stop making it easy for them!   NOTE: email petitions are NOT acceptable to Government, or any other organisation – 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're just helping the email trackers. Please don’t start adding your address to these lists being circulated worldwide who know who may use that.   Please read the full story here: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/internet.asp

IMPORTANT!! HOW TO FORWARD EMAIL APPROPRIATELY

Please read the short note below, even if you're sure you already follow proper procedures. Do you wonder why you get viruses or junk mail? Do you hate it?

Every time you forward an email there is information left over from the people who got the message before you, namely their email 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 sap to get a virus, and his or her computer can send that virus to every email 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 he 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 email, 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 email to more than one person, do NOT use the To: or Cc: fields for adding email addresses. Always use the BCC: (blind carbon copy)field for listing the email addresses. This is the way the people you send to will only see their own email 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. In Hotmail it appears at the top right as an option. 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. Have you ever got an email 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. (Don’t you ever wonder who is going to send the petition to the cause? And don't believe the ones that say that the email is being traced, that would be even more worrying)
5. How many times have you been taken by mails that say, 'Send this email 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 when you send it? HAS IT EVER HAPPENED!!!!! No they never have but we still keep seeing them. Don’t let the bad luck ones scare you either, just trash them or if you like the mail have the courtesy not to threaten the next person if you do forward it on and delete the threat.
6. Before you forward an Amber Alert, Virus Alert, Spam 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 email that is in question can be checked out at Snopes. Just go tohttp://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. Let’s stop the junk mail and viruses and speculation and myths by being responsible mailers and that way we will help STOP the junk mail and the viruses.

Finally, here's an idea!!!   Send this to everyone YOU know (if you are forwarding this then strip of the address from whom you have received it) and send them using the BBC (Blind Carbon Copy.).   THIS is something that SHOULD be forwarded .