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StopForwardingUs politely tells friends, relatives to stop sending 3-year-old viral videos

Service lets you send an anonymous, yet courteous message telling them to stop sending mass forwarded e-mails to friends, family members, and co-workers.

Josh Lowensohn Former Senior Writer
Josh Lowensohn joined CNET in 2006 and now covers Apple. Before that, Josh wrote about everything from new Web start-ups, to remote-controlled robots that watch your house. Prior to joining CNET, Josh covered breaking video game news, as well as reviewing game software. His current console favorite is the Xbox 360.
Josh Lowensohn
2 min read

StopForwardingUs is less of a service as much as it is a statement. It lets you send an anonymous, yet polite message to someone telling them to stop sending mass forwarded e-mails to friends, family members, and co-workers.

All you need to do this is their name and e-mail address and it will send the note on. The e-mail that's sent out links up to StopForwardingUs' etiquette page, which smartly points out "our correspondence reflects who we are," which might be a more subtle way of telling your brother-in-law to stop sending you e-mails about Bubble Yum bubblegum containing spider eggs.

The real problem here is that you may not always know how many other people your sender has included in their messages. If they're savvy to the blind carbon copy function on their e-mail client, you could be setting yourself up to be targeted as the person who sent the note, thus rendering the power of anonymity useless.

I've pasted the full e-mail your recipient gets after the jump--with spelling corrections.

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[via DownloadSquad and Lifehacker]


    Hi Josh,

    One of your friends has sent you this message from StopForwarding.Us, a Web site that allows individuals to anonymously email their friends and politely ask that they stop the habit of sending forwarded e-mails or FWDs.

    Please do not forward chain letters, urban myths presented as truth, potentially offensive jokes, videos or photos without being asked or first receiving permission. If you find something that is funny and it is clean and you genuinely think the recipient will enjoy it, then forward it to that person only (not in an e-mail blast to all your friends and family) and include a personal note about why you enjoyed it and why you think they will too. Avoid sending forwards to friends or relatives that you've grown distant with. It can be frustrating for the recipient when the only correspondence you have with someone is via impersonal, unwanted e-mail.

    For more tips on e-mail etiquette, visit StopForwarding.Us/etiq.html


    Thank you, A Friend (via stopforwarding.us)