How to Handle Unwanted Email Forwards

There are plenty of people that enjoy receiving email with jokes, striking pictures, outrage on political or economic topics, or ways to ensure good luck. More enjoyment comes from forwarding them on to others.

You know you’ve seen them: “Hey, Bob! Check out this funny picture of a cat stuck all the way through both sides of a bird cage while a parakeet rests on his back!”

The Dangers
The thing is, forwarding email can have some dangers such as verifying your email address to spammers or the more obvious time sinks they can cause as the recipient browses around looking for more of the same or a snopes.com debunking of the included stories. You may not want to particpate, especially at work, but how do you tell your friend or family member you don’t want to without hurting feelings or even ruining a relationship?

“I Believe I’d Be Helping Spammers”
The first way is to tell the forwarder you are concerned about the aid this gives to spammers. Including the link from CNN I gave above might be helpful. That’s a particularly compelling reason, since everyone hates spammers. I bet even spammers hate other spammers. (I wonder if a spammer has ever been irritated after receiving his own spam in an email.)

You might want to start such an email with something like, “Thanks for sending this on to me. I’m happy to find out you were thinking of me.” Of course, one problem is that by sending a chronic email forwarder this message and including a link to why it’s a danger could result in the initiation of another long forwarded chain message as the email forwarder tells everyone he knows that forwarding emails is dangerous! And it’ll have your email address embedded therein. Oops.

Give a “Play” Email Address
Another great approach, especially if fighting spam at the risk of your friendships isn’t worth it to you, is to ask the email forwarder to use your “play” email address instead of your “work” email address. That play address could easily be one you set up for this express purpose for free on Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo. Hotmail might be a great choice, since it seems to attract lots of spam even if no one knows it.

Then, you can decide whether or not you ever actually check that play address. Maybe you never do. Replying to forwarded emails is usually not necessary and it’s rare that an email forwarder ever asks you, “Hey, what did you think of that email I forwarded? The one with the monkey and the squid?”

Never Yell at the Forwarder
You can really mess up a friendship or business relationship if you blast the email forwarder for sending you the email. Remember, he sent it to you because he likes you and wanted to share. That you aren’t all that interested in that particular activity is something he probably just hasn’t learned yet and he undoubtedly figures that simply clicking Delete is so easy that he’s not really bothering you anyway. His intentions matter. Be generous with your opinion of him and show you value the relationship far more than whether or not you get a few emails you didn’t really want.

Or, Ignore It
Of course, I simply ignore most forwards. I’m not an email forwarder, so the chain ends when it reaches me. I admit I’ve had an occasional chuckle out of something I’ve received. Most people that forward stuff to me eventually stop when I don’t forward stuff of my own or reply, but I don’t know of anyone that’s been offended by my silence.

That means I haven’t tried the “play”address technique. I’m guessing. I’d be very interested to find out from someone that tries it whether the play address starts getting spam. Now there’s something I’d be happy to have forwarded to me!