You8217;ve got junk mil!

June 24: It's the kind of junk that's most difficult to clean up after: noboby knows where it is coming from. Subscribers the cyberworld ...

June 24: It8217;s the kind of junk that8217;s most difficult to clean up after: noboby knows where it is coming from. Subscribers the cyberworld over are being bombarded with chain e-mails that seemingly emanate from nowhere and serve no purpose, except for clogging the poor recipient8217;s mailbox.

A steady stream of chain messages have been makign their way into mailboxes, with dogged regularity over the last month. There was this e-mail which accused designer Tommy Hilfiger of stating on an episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show that his clothes were not meant for third world countries8217;. Oprah had asked him to get off the show for his racist remarks, goes the e-mail. And the netizens were generous with flak for Hilfiger and tons of goodwill for Oprah. Reality: Hilfiger is yet to appear on the show. Denials from both Oprah and Hilfiger are still doing the rounds, but they probably don8217;t have the mailing lists the size of those who kicked off the rumours in the first place.

And after India8217;s disastrous defeat atthe hands of Zimbabwe in the World Cup, another chain email said Azharuddin had resigned as captain on moral grounds8217;. Quelled before it got out of hand, the source of the mail was, again, untracable.

According to a recent shocker, a kidney theft ring in New Orleans, Australia was chopping out innocent tourists8217; kidneys after drugging them sufficiently and dumping them in a bathtub full of ice. Although a friend of a friend swears it happened to their cousin, the actual facts can be downloaded on urbanlegends.tqn.com/library/weekly/aa062997.html8217;. The American National Kidney Foundation even issued requests for victims to come forth with their stories. None have, not even a friend8217;s friend8217;s cousin.

Then there are those chain emails that promise to pave your pockets with moolah. After Netscape and America On-Line AOL recently merged to form the world8217;s largest internet firm, rival Microsoft got back by introducing a new email tracking system to keep Internet Explorer the most popular browser.

Thisemail is a beta test of the new software, and Microsoft has generously offered to compensate participants in the testing process. For each person you send this mail to, you will be given 5. For each person they send it to, you get 3. For every person they send it to, you get 1. Microsoft will tally your emails over two weeks and email you with further instructions.

This test is meant for Microsoft Windows users, because the email tracking device that contacts Microsoft is embedded in Windows 95 and 98 codes. But the rider is, big companies don8217;t do business through chain letters. Microsoft or Bill Gates is not giving you 1,000, nor is Walt Disney a free vacation.

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A more enticing one was how Abercrombie amp; Fitch merged to form the world8217;s largest outfit company. To beat them, GAP introduced an email tracking system to determine brand loyalty. GAP has offered all paticipants a pair of cargo pants. For every person they give it to, you get a Hawaiian print T-shirt, and for every person they send it to,you get a fisherman8217;s hat. If you wish to speed up the clothes receiving process8217;, email GAP8217;s public relations department for a free list of email addresses at gollygapyahoo.com. The address is a hoax, and given that this email has surfaced only about a couple of weeks ago, maybe GAP is working towards a suitable referral.

But the prize howler, as real as howlers in the virtual world can go, was that the latest NASA rocket disasters contained plutonium that went to particulate over the eastern seaboard8217;. Just one question: Do you think NASA would broadcast this kind of information via an AOL chain-letter?