Okay, people, it’s time I come clean on the REAL reason I hate forwards. It’s not because I’m tired of seeing cheating spouses get what they deserve, seeing pictures of wet cats*, announcements telling me not to buy gas on a certain day (which, by the way, won’t work) or even people telling me to put my cell phone on a no-call list.

It’s because the Forwarders of the World (FW:) don’t realize the damage they do when they To: or CC: everyone in their address book.

Let me back up. When I give you my email address, I trust you not to give it to a spammer. I trust you to use it to communicate with me.

But when you send a forwarded message to everyone in your Address Book, you are effectively broadcasting your email Address Book to everyone. And when one of your friends forwards the message to everyone that they know, they are sending my email address to places I never wanted it to be.

And sooner or later, a spammer gets hold of the list. And because of this forward, all of us get crap-loads of spam. All because of a dumb picture of a wet cat.

So, Forwarders of the World, here is the solution:

You can send me all the silly forwards that you want, but you must do three things:

1) in the To: field, put your own name.
2) in the BCC: field, put everyone you want to send this message to.
3) if there are a bunch of other email addresses in the message, delete them. Don’t spread other people’s email addresses.

This way, no one gets hurt and we can all enjoy a funny picture or two.

Thank you.

*okay, I really am tired of seeing wet cats