Things to keep in mind before forwarding emails

How hoaxes and rumors are spreading through internet? Mainly through e mail forwarding. We often forward funnies, pictures, quotes, stories etc through to our friends. Anything wrong in this? The hoaxes like Two moons in sky, Coca Cola and Mentos blast, Saudi Arabian Mermaid Picture , Free Ericson laptops etc are still alive in the net mainly due to blind email forwards.  Here some important things to keep in mind before forwarding mails to your contacts.

1.         Read the mail completely till the end. Understand if any hidden meaning behind the story or the picture. Blind forwarding without understanding the meaning can even affect your image among your friends, relatives and colleagues.

2.         If you want to forward an interesting email delete all the addresses that in the message body. It will take hardly a few seconds. If you don’t do this, as the messages get forwarded, the addresses will keep on building up and finally it may reach in the hand of spammers also, who can misuse these contacts.

3.         Before forwarding an unbelievable image, story or news do a simple Google search with the subject.

4.         You cannot save a child or reduce the poverty just by forwarding an email. Always refrain from forwarding the chain emails and petitions. An email petition can’t do anything. If you don’t like a forward simply trash it or you want to express your feeling to the sender, send it back.

5.         Try to avoid forwarding of mails intended to defame a person or an organization. It can invite serious legal issues also.

6.         If you want to forward an email to more than one person, enter your own email address in the “To” field and other addresses are in the “BCC” field. This will protect the addresses are being transmitted to others who don’t know each other.

7.         If you find one mail is hoax, still it is very interesting to be shared with your friend, then specify the same as a hoax in the subject or content then forward it.