In article <[log in to unmask]>, LISTSERV list
owners' forum <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
 
>     Has anyone else seen this? Is it legitimate? I refuse to pass it on to my
> list if it is indeed a scam to collect email addresses for a later spam. (I
> realize that I am not showing the true holiday spirit, but I worry about the
> use of the net for other purposes...).
 
   Someone forwarded that message to a list I am subscribed to. This was
my response questioning the validity of the message, and how there is a
valid charity donation initiative via the WWW:
 
 
 
        Is this a joke? I mean, really, what would stop a "well
intentioned" user from writing a very simple job that mailed those sites
automatically throughout the Christmas season. If you check
http://north.pole.org/ the agreement says the following:
 
1.) Various corportations "sponsor" a particular charity for this site
2.) When someone visits the page of this sponsored charity on
north.pole.org, the sponsor donates $.10 to that charity
 
        While certainly someone could write a program to hit these pages
automatically a gazzillion times, the below system of sending e-mail seems
much more likely to get out of hand. Is there a source from Sun which
confirms this?
        Organizations paritipating the the WWW page initiative are Sun
(sponsoring a page on Second Harvest Food Bank), Friedman, Billings,
Ramsey & Co, Inc. (sponsoring the Chesapeak Wildlife Heritage), Ex
Machina, Inc. (sponsoring the Harlem Educationsal Activities Fund, Inc.),
and Bay Networks (sponsoring Plugged In).
        (Just worried that this might result in the site being
horrendously mailbombed with no benefit.)
 
David