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November 28, 2009

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chain e-mail

Last modified: Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Chain e-mails are those that, in the body or subject of the message, asks the recipient to forward the e-mail on to multiple people. Many chain letter e-mails are hoaxes and are often considered to be a security and privacy risk. If the message is forwarded on by a person, it will usually show the names and e-mail addresses of everyone you have sent it to, and possibly the addresses of everyone the last person (from which you received it) also sent it to. The risk is that you do not know if an unscrupulous or malicious person will receive the e-mail with all the e-mail addresses, and what they might choose to do with that list. Many consider chain e-mail to be a type of spam.

(Chain letters) C'mon, What Can It Hurt?
E-mail is so easy and convenient that it is difficult to anticipate or even imagine an e-mail chain letter having negative consequences to those who forward it.

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