Although lots of those game-type letters are a lot of fun (such as “change a letter in the word to make a new word and forward to a friend”), it is sad that they cannot be trusted to not contain cookie trackers.  We have learned from bad experience by having our e-mail service overwhelmed with SPAM after participating in a few of these.  We therefore no longer participate in any e-mail petitions or others described below.

 

     Advice   from  Snopes:     http://snopes..com/ <http://snopes.com/>    

1)    Any time you see an E-Mail that says forward this on to '10' of your  friends, sign this petition, or you'll get bad luck, or whatever,  it  has either an E-Mail tracker program attached that tracks the cookies and  E-Mails of those folks you forward.  The  host sender is getting a copy each time it gets forwarded and then is able  to get lists of ' active ' E-Mails to use in SPAM E-Mails, or  sell   to others that do.    

2)    Almost all E-Mails 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 E-Mail is, is a way to get names and  'cookie' tracking information for telemarketers and spammers - - to  validate active E-Mail accounts for  their own  purposes.   

You  can do your friends and family members a GREAT favor 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  E-Mails in the future!  

If you have been sending out (FORWARDING)  the above kinds of E-Mail, now you know why you get so much  SPAM!    

Do yourself a favor and STOP  adding your name(S) to those type listings  regardless how inviting they  might sound! 

You think you are supporting a GREAT  cause, but you are NOT in the long run.  Instead you will be getting  tons of junk mail later in life!  

Also:    E-Mail petitions are NOT acceptable to Congress or any other  organization.    To be acceptable, petitions must have a signed signature and full address  of the person signing the petition.  Read the full story here:   Http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/Internet.asp