BreakTheChain.org

The Ballad of Rachel Arlington

Date Added: April 11, 2002
Last Updated: April 2, 2006

When I originally added this chain letter to the BreakTheChain.org hall of shame in 2001, i thought it was just a flash in the pan - another in a long line of e-mail tracking hoaxes that would undoubtedly fade away once people began to understand that what it promises just can't happen. But I guess I underestimated the emotional impact this one would have. Changes to it as it circulates have helped make it one of the most pervasive and troublesome e-mail chain letters to surface since the Internet began.

We'll begin with the simple version that started it all in 2001. In this one, poor Rachel is 10 years old and is suffering from brain cancer:

In 2002, and for no apparent reason other than to crank up the emotional factor, an anonymous forwarder attached an unrelated, though touching, studio photo of a naked sleeping infant with a blue bow and divine gift tag tied around her. The attachment was initially a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, but was later converted to a more universal .jpg image. In some versions, the text was added directly to the image. It was also at this point that the now prevalent subject, "Leukaemia" (European spelling), was also inexplicably added. Leukemia is a blood cancer. It didn't take long for some forwarders to notice the discrepancy between the age given in the text, and the apparent age of the child in the attached photo. So, someone did what any logical, thinking human being would do: they changed the text to match the image.

The "blue ribbon baby" versions of the Rachel Arlington hoax continue to be the most popular, but shortly after the text was changed to portray the girl as an infant, another version surfaced. This time, a touching poem takes the place of the image (presumably to appeal to those whose e-mail does not support images), all the names had been removed, the entreaty was changed to third-person and a touching poem was attached.

As of this writing, I have little information on the origins of the poem, except that it appears to have been written by Sally Meyer as a tribute to her son, Dhylan, when he was diagnosed with autism at age 20 months.

The Rachel Arlington chain letter has been translated into various languages and attributed to many different authors in countries all over the world. By now, you're probably thinking: "Enough with the history lesson - why, exactly is this a hoax?" Calm down, you'll get your answers.

The most prevalent early chain letters were ones that promised that great change, monetary gain, or both, could be accomplished though the simple act of forwarding a message to everyone you know. For people not familiar with how the Internet worked, this was a welcoming concept. The desire to help our fellow man - with very little energy and absolutely no cost - is indeed a powerful motivator that led many to believe it could be that easy. Hoaxes like this prey on our desire to help a child and the guilt we'd feel if it was really that easy and we didn't do it. We're even scolded in later versions of the Rachel Arlington chain that we don't have a heart if we don't forward it on. Well, don't feel guilty - nothing about this e-mail makes sense.

AOL and ZDNET are technology companies and are not involved in any kind of fund raiser to save a kid. It is true that large corporations like these do make charitable contributions, but these are seldom in the form of direct monetary payments to an individual or family. Most likely, it would take the form of a large gift given to a hospital or charitable organization that would use the gift to help many, not just one. I have found no evidence of either of these companies - or any other organization for that matter - making any such contribution in the name of Rachel Arlington. In fact, I can find no reference to her name outside of versions of this chain letter.

Even if a company were to give a donation to an individual or family, they certainly wouldn't make them jump through hoops to get it. If the situation were true, an e-mail tracking scheme certainly shouldn't be "the only way they can help?" And, any company that tried such a cruel technique would certainly garner some bad press from their selfishness.

The most compelling argument against this chain is that e-mail tracking as it's described in this letter is impossible. Since the e-mail tracking hoax first originated (in the late 1990s), there have been many great strides in e-mail technology that allow some degree of tracking in very controlled environments and circumstances, but tracking on the level suggested by the Rachel Arlington chain letter simply isn't feasible or desirable.

It isn't feasible because of the simple numbers game. If you forward this chain to ten people who, in turn, pass it on to ten more, and so on, we get one million copies in just 6 generations. At the 32 cent per forward rate, this would add up to $320,000 in just a couple of hours. Now, consider the fact that this chain has been around for more than half a decade in at least a dozen different countries and you'd have a charitable commitment of trillions!

It isn't desirable because of privacy issues. Even if AOL and ZDNET (or whatever companies are named in the version you received) had the ability to know to whom you forward a message (which they don't), would you really want them to? If they could track how many times you forward a message and to whom, what else could they track? At a time when identity theft is the fastest-growing crime worldwide, this would be a most undesirable thing. But, most people are so caught up in the altruistic theme in these chains that they don't stop to consider the serious privacy issues that would surface if such a thing really were real.

That there is nobody overtly tracking this message doesn't mean that forwarding it on is harmless, either. While they can't be tracked in the manner described above, they can be (and are) collected. E-mail tracking hoaxes were most likely created initially to poke fun at and exploit naive new e-mail users. But, recently, e-mail hoaxes have taken on a darker side. Many spammers and scam artists now employ or seek out chain letters like this one to build their mailing lists. When you forward a chain like the Rachel Arlington hoax on to others, you're putting your e-mail address and likely those of your friends and family out in the wild to be collected. If you've been wondering why you get so much unwanted e-mail, the answer may be no further than your "Forward" button. The more junk you send, the more you will receive. Don't want the junk! Break this chain.

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