Some one else may have posted this already if so I am sorry to make you all
read it again.
 
My father refused to send email to santa as he felt it was a cheap way to
collect email addresses, only .10 cents each...
 
Chrissie Devinney
[log in to unmask]
 
>From the Dec. 15, Online New York Times
 
12/15:CHRISTMAS SPIRIT MISFIRES AS SANTA GETS "SPAMMED'
 
By PETER H. LEWIS
 
c.1994 N.Y. Times News Service
 
Santa Claus' data base just swelled by several megabytes, computer experts
said Wednesday, after unknown letter writers bombarded his North Pole
Internet address with thousands of Christmas letters.
 
"Santa got spammed," said Carl Malamud of Washington, referring to the
practice, reviled in cyberspace, of sending out a bulk mailing of unsolicited
letters or messages.
 
Malamud, president of the Internet Multicasting Service, manages Santa's
electronic mail, cookie recipe, Christmas jingle and volunteer information
center on the global network of computers.
 
What started as a high-tech "Cyberspace Christmas" fund-raising effort by
several civic-minded organizations appears to have backfired, at least
temporarily, said George Paolini, corporate information manager for Sun
Microsystems Inc. of Mountain View, Calif.
 
Sun was one of four companies that promised to donate 10 cents each time
someone used the Internet's World Wide Web electronic publishing resource to
read about a specific charity.
 
Although more than 30 million computer users worldwide are thought to have
the ability to send electronic mail messages to Santa by using the Internet,
only about 2 million people are believed to have the advanced technical tools
needed to visit Santa's "home page" on the World Wide Web. People with access
to the World Wide Web can visit Santa's Cyberspace Christmas center at the
URL: http://north.pole.org.
 
But at least some Internet users apparently misinterpreted the offer,
thinking that Sun and the other companies, including Ex Machina Inc. of New
York, would donate 10 cents each time Santa received an electronic mail
letter.
 
Because there are no stamps in cyberspace, there is no penalty for sending
lots and lots of letters. People started adding Santa's E-mail address -
santa anorth.pole.org - to the "cc" of every message they sent.
 
Quickly, word of the charity offer spread throughout the Internet, and
programmers began sending "mail bombs" of hundreds of messages an hour to
Santa to accelerate the donations.
 
"When we got in this morning, there were 42,000 messages in Santa's mail
queue," Malamud said. Still, he said, it caused only a temporary hiccup in
the system, and he promised that legitimate letters to Santa from children
around the world would continue to be delivered.
 
"I'm sure there was no malicious intent on anyone's part," said Paolini of
Sun, which plans to donate $25,000 to the Second Harvest Food Bank in San
Jose, Calif. "Obviously the intent here was to generate funds for the needy."