Technology

Email Forward Hoax Alert!

You are a busy professional and receive many emails per day – most of them being spam. And guess what, more often than not, its your friends and relatives who are the ones responsible for clogging your inbox.

The Hoax: The latest in email forward hoax in India is “Help me / my husband /son/daughter by forwarding this email”

The email is usually an emotional appeal for forwarding the email to as many email subscribers as possible and the originator will receive 5 cents per forward from AOL.

The Truth: I checked from AOL’s Bulk Email Policies and its Terms of Reference – and it explicitly mentions that unsolicited mail which does not qualify as per US CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (which includes bulk emails and forwards) – are not tolerated, let alone be compensated for. Lets face it, how is AOL to gain from an email forward? Altruism, you say? Well, in that case you would see Nigerians rolling in dollars by now, considering that most of the fraud email originate from there.

Please let as many people know about this and help in reducing the spam.