Did you hear? Bill Gates is giving away $1000 to whomever forwards this message. Honest. Not convinced? Then you're probably staring at the publication date of this article. But this is no April fool's day gig. It's a year round e-mail hoax. That particular hoax has been circulating around the Internet for nearly four years and is still going strong. Fueled by naïve and inexperienced cybercitizens Internet hoaxes abound continue to flourish.
The "Bill Gates Hoax" spun off countless others. Some of these claim to come from Disney, Netscape, AOL, GAP, IBM, Microsoft, and Intel. Thirsty? Maybe you'd enjoy the Coca-Cola hoax or the one supposedly from Miller's promising you free beer! The list of Internet "giveaway hoaxes" reads like a Fortune 500 list. You'll find hoaxes that claim to come from GAP, Old Navy, J. Crew, Bath & Bodyworks, and Victoria's Secret. Some giveaways stretch the limit of how much is offered for free. Think Columbia House would be giving away free CD's? Maybe. Think Ericsson and Nokia are both giving away free mobile phones? Hmm. Think Honda is really giving away brand new Civics? !
But "Giveaway Hoaxes" are just one of the many categories of hoaxes out there. Perhaps you've heard of "Internet Clean-up Day?" That's the day you're supposed to disconnect your computer from the Internet so your data won't get deleted by the massive search engines that are clearing away old, outdated information. While it may seem like a excellent idea to "clean-up" the Internet every once in a while, there could never be a practical way to do so properly, and certainly not in just one day! Indeed "Internet Clean-up Day" has earned the prestigious status of "Urban Myth." Other myths spread by appealing to fear. Don't buy bananas for the next three weeks-- they could be infected with flesh-eating bacteria. Be careful when you sit down at the Movie Theater-- there might be an HIV infected needle waiting to prick you. Be even more careful when you make a call from a pubic pay phone-- some gang has laced the buttons with a deadly form of LSD. You don't want to lick ATM envelopes either, since you may end up licking cyanide. The list continues: Anti perspirant causes breast cancer-- shampoo also does, and sunscreen causes blindness!
In case you haven't been paying attention those are all myths and are not even remotely true. Sometimes these myths are just pranks but others could harm businesses. One, for example, claims KFC doesn't serve real chicken anymore. Another states outlandish accusations about the president of Procter & Gamble using profits to support a satanic church. But P&G got off easy compared to the hoax about Taco Bell (which I will not be repeating here. You'll just have to trust me on this one. You don't want to know!) Other e-mails that get passed around are actually scams that can cost you if you're not careful. There's a famous America Online scam that directs AOL users to a website and asks them to log on again. There's just one problem. That website is not AOL's but instead some scam artist's who is collecting the unsuspecting victims' passwords.
