Do you like spam? I'm not talking about the canned variety sold as "SPAM" (all uppercase), but the email variety called "spam" (all lowercase).

Do you like receiving it? If you forward email messages in a chain, you're asking to receive it! I received a message earlier, titled "Fwd: Fw: PLEASE DO NOT DELETE PHOTOS BUT SEND THEM ON!". It hadn't been forwarded many times yet, the original message being dated February 21st, 2007. I went through and counted 56 email addresses that were not my own!

Imagine what a spamming outfit can do with 56 email addresses. Imagine how many email addresses will be on the message after it's been forwarded a hundred times. Now imagine what a spamming outfit can do with 5,600 or even 56,000 email addresses.

If you really must forward that particularly funny or informative message that you just read, put the email addresses in the "BCC:" address field of the email client instead of the "To:" address field. Put your own email address in the "To:" address field. Guess what? When they receive the message, it will be addressed to you and you only.

If you can't or won't take the time to forward email in such a way that protects the email addresses of the recipients, then I have a piece of advice for you:

DON'T SEND IT!

(By the way, I'm sending a message to all 56 email addresses to come and read this.)