I'm almost positive everybody's gotten a copy of this thing. It's a hoax, here's the text:

Hello Everyone,  And thank you for signing up for my Beta Email Tracking Application or (BETA) for short. My name is Bill Gates. Here at Microsoft we have just compiled an e-mail tracing program that tracks everyone to whom this message is forwarded  to. It does this through an unique IP (Internet Protocol) address log book database.

We are experimenting with this and need your help. Forward this to everyone you know and if it reaches 1000 people everyone on the list you will receive $1000 and a copy of Windows98 at my expense. Enjoy.

Note: Duplicate entries will not be counted. You will be notified by email  with further instructions once this email has reached 1000 people. Windows98 will not be shipped unitl it has been released to the general public.

Your friend, Bill Gates & The Microsoft Development Team.

There is no way to track e-mail after you send it, without getting a direct reply back, or a later forward directed back to you. There are some kinds of e-mail software that send confirmations back to the sender, but both sender and receiver have to use the same software (intranets and extranets connecting company computers and their employees also have this function in many cases).

So, if you get this chain letter and forward it, only you and the people you send it to know who got it, "Bill Gates" (yeah, right) can't have any idea where it's going.

Sending this chain and any other just wastes people's time (most people don't want these things) and costs your service provider money (in our case, WebTV), increasing the costs of providing service, wasting money that could have been spent improving service (getting new local access numbers, for instance). E-mail is free for us, but it costs WebTV money, and down the road increased costs could increase our monthly subscription fee.

Another really good reason not to forward chainletters is illustrated in this e-mail I received in late May of '98 (emphasis added):

Subject: apology

Hi! :-)

Earlier today I sent out my JOTD(joke of the day) and mistakenly clicked on the wrong mailing list. I apologize if my e-mail offended you in any way. I got your e-mail addy from a chain letter with the intention of sending you a courtesy joke asking you if you were interested in joining my joke list. I have two lists: JOTD(joke of the day) and JOTW(joke of the week)! I send the jokes out to everyone on the list! It is FREE! Let me know if you are interested!

:-)

Forward a chainletter and not only will you get more spam, so will your friends that you forward it to.

Now, I'm sure a lot of you think I'm being an alarmist here, but the point is we have a responsibility to use our network resources responsibly, and forwarding chain letters to people who don't want them is not only a waste of resources, it's annoying (I'm speaking for myself and many other people here). If something sounds too good to be true, it is.

For more info:

Thanks for reading this, please take it to heart,

Paul Erickson

P.S. Do you really think Bill Gates would give away a million dollars and several hundred thousand dollars worth of free software? C'mon.

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