What harm can e-mail do?

Don't forward another message until you read this

By Doug Shaner
MACPA Information Technology Manager

E-mail has become an integral part of how most of us conduct our business. Many of us also use it extensively for personal communications. What many of us don't realize is that e-mail is being used to distribute vast amounts of false information. This distribution of false information is wasting time, lowering productivity and, in some cases, causing financial and other hardships to innocent individuals and organizations.

E-mails aimed at distributing false information usually come in the form of a chain mail message telling you how you can get something for free, help someone who is in need or boycott a certain company or product due to some questionable business practice. You have probably seen messages describing how you can get money from Microsoft and / or AOL by helping them test an e-mail tracking program. You also might have seen messages urging you to not purchase certain stamps, Pepsi or some other product or service. Many of these messages urge you to forward a copy to everyone in your address book.

Don't forward the message until you have finished reading this.

E-mail chain letters are almost never true. I have been checking the validity of every chain letter I have received over the past several years. Of all the chain messages I have received, only a couple of them have turned out to be true. So if you forward a chain mail, chances are you are helping distribute false information and contributing to the problem.

E-mail chain letters can and do harm legitimate businesses. A few years ago I received an e-mail that discussed how NASA had discovered a "missing day" in the universe. The message sounded very convincing and even mentioned names of companies and individuals who had worked on the project.

I was very interested in this topic so I tried to e-mail the company mentioned in the article. I was not able to reach them via e-mail so I looked them up and called them. When I got through, I was told by a very irate receptionist that the entire story had been a hoax and that their e-mail, voice mail and telephone systems were being overrun by inquiries. This hoax was actually hurting this company, which had nothing to do with distributing the false information. To read more about this hoax, visit this Web page: www.snopes.com/religion/lostday.htm

So what can you do to help solve this problem? I suggest that every time you receive an e-mail chain letter, you visit the Urban Legends Reference Pages at www.snopes.com to check the validity of the message. It only takes a few seconds. You can search by typing in a few keywords and then clicking the search button. For the NASA story, I typed in "NASA missing day." When I received a message about cell phones causing fires at gas stations, I typed in "cell phone gas station."

And when you discover that someone has sent you a message containing false information, inform them of the problem they are contributing to, send them a link to the page on snopes.com that discusses the particular issue, and ask them to check all chain messages they receive in the future on snopes.com before they forward them.

Contact this Author: < Douglas Shaner > doug@macpa.org

This content has not yet been Rated.

To Rate content, please Login.