Just my luck!
It's not every day that I'm able to click into a web site and discover that I'm
a winner:
But perhaps it's almost every day. Somebody seems to think that there's
a good chance that I'll actually believe that I've won something, just as somebody
still thinks that when I'm offered an opportunity to help get funds out of Nigeria
(or any number of other countries already) and also make a hefty profit at the
same time, I'll also believe that the person contacting me is doing so because
of my own special qualities, qualities that are of course distinct from those
of other netizens who apparently aren't receiving this personal letter.
B.T. Barnum is often quoted as having said "Nobody ever went broke underestimating
the stupidity of the American public", a saying that's been paraphrased numerous
times, often replacing "stupidity" with "gullibility". Don
Burleson, a blogger I'm not familiar with, but apparently a well known expert
on Oracle, posts
his own web related take:
Never underestimate the gullibility of Netizens.
The proof Burleson brings to his claim is an announcement that seems to take the
ploy of "click here to be removed from this mailing list", a request
we have to make even though we never requested to be on that mailing list in the
first place, one step beyond. There's definitely something special about Burleson's
example, though perhaps it has to been read slowly and carefully for the idea
to sink in:
Burleson doesn't really know whether anybody has actually fallen for this, but
somehow it's not hard to imagine that it happens all the time.
Go to: It's nothing personal.
