Advice from Snopes
 
Here is a nice little tidbit of information that came my way this morning,
so if any of you are wondering why I won't return something to you that said
something like 'if I don't get this back I'll....or, 'See how many flowers
or hugs you can get back', or   'Forward this to 10 people in the next 5
mins. or something bad will happen to you',  etc.
The following is why I will not send them back.
 
 
  Advice from Snopes.com <http://snopes.com/>  < <http://snopes.com/>
 
     1) Any time you see an E-Mail that says forward this on to '10' of your
friends, or sign this petition, or you'll get bad luck, good luck, or
whatever,  it almost always has an E-Mail tracker program attached that
tracks the cookies and E-Mails of those folks you forward to.
  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
other spammers.
    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 profitable purposes.
    You can do your friends and family members a GREAT favor (PLEASE) 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 types of
listings regardless how inviting they might sound!
You may 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! Plus, we are helping the spammers get rich! Let's don't make it
easy for them!
    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.  Make
a hard copy and sign and MAIL by US mail.
    Read the full story here: