I call shenanigans

[Edit: I was wrong. WRONG. Contrary to the notes below, which have been crossed out, e-mail tracking does exist. see the correction above. sorry mom.]

I just received an e-mail from someone about e-mail tracker programs. To protect the innocent party's identity, let us refer to her simply as mom.

The e-mail is intended to warn the ones we love about nefarious tracker programs attached to "forward this on to ten people" e-mails. It then says the following:

You can do your Friends and Family members a GREAT favor by sending this information to them.

Isn't the whole point of this e-mail to warn people about cookie trackers and not spamming people with warning forwards? How do I know there isn't a mythical cookie tracker attached to this e-mail?

E-mail tracker programs do not exist. If they did exist, I would be sitting on millions of dollars from the Bill Gates e-mail I forwarded in college in 1994.

but don't take my word for it, go to the very source referenced in the e-mail: snopes.com (also my favorite debunking web site)

Please. I implore all of you to spend the brief ten seconds of your life to check these things out on google before mechanically hitting the forward button. [note to self: do better research before blogging.]

Let us use the e-mail system for what it was intended:

e-mails telling me about how great your kid/puppy/vacation is
cute kitty pictures
I am also particularly fond of cute giraffe pictures, but I am not that picky
motivationals
people you admire
inspirational photos or words
or combinations of the above: here is a favorite photo of my cool wife from a trip we took to Utah in 2001
cute as a kitten, we were on vacation, she motivates me, I admire her and she inspires me. If I could just sneak a giraffe into the photo it would be perfect.