Email Forwarding

This was taken from an email I received from a friend of mine. It is one of the best descriptions of why leaving addresses from other people in email you receive and forward is a bad idea. my thanks to Fred and the individuals he got this from.

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-mail 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, 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) Another way, and the way I forward any e mails.

Just Copy & Paste - Highlight the part of the e mail that you want to forward, Right click your mouse and chose COPY, then open an new mail box, and in the message area, place your curser and right click again and chose PASTE. Your copied text, pictures, art and all, will appear. Then fill in the SUBJECT area, and send to your addresses using the BCC. On AOL, you do that by opening your Address Book, chose the 1st address then before you chose a 2nd and other addresses, hold down the CTRL key. When you are through selecting addresses to send to, release the CTRL key and hit BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) The addresses will all appear in the "Copy To" box. Put your address in the "Send To: box and click "Send Now"

(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!)