Quake3World

The headers and whatnot all appear legit, as does the address the 'invitation' links to, but I don't understand this idea of amazon emailing me on someone else's behalf...anyone seen this before?

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Hi,

May I point your attention to Obadiah Shoher\'s recently published Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict.

Yahoo and Google banned the website for this book from their ad programs for \"unacceptable content.\" The book, however, is only honest, and the measures suggested are only rational.

Shoher is a pen name for veteran Israeli politician. He dealt with security issues for most of his career. The Samson Blinded dissects honestly the problems accumulated since the Jews returned to Palestine. Advocating political rationalism, it deplores both Jewish and Muslim myths, and argues for efficiency and separating politics from moralism.

I will gladly email you review copy, or you can download it from http://www.terrorism-in-israel.org . We send free paper copies to journalists, bloggers, and activists; please request.

Whatever will be your opinion of the book, we would welcome your review of it on Amazon. We face an onslaught of superficial hostile reviews, and really need thoughtful opinions.

Best,
Alex Hertz
alex@terrorism-in-israel.org

P.S. We strive to avoid multiple mailings. Mistakes, however, happen, and we\'re sorry if you received this message twice. Please ignore it, then.

To accept this invitation, please follow the link below and click on the Accept Invitation button:


View Invitation
*link is to http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/invitation ... Gf6UZCsLSN


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<alex43263@terrorism-in-israel.org> requested that we send this e-mail. If you have questions about Amazon.com, please visit our Help Department

Amazon.com
1200 12th Ave. S.
Suite 1200
Seattle, WA 98144-2734
Earth's Biggest Selection
Find, Discover and Buy Virtually Anything
http://www.amazon.com/

Are you 100% sure it's from Amazon? As you've just said,

The headers and whatnot all appear legit,

During my several years as a webmaster (which is still my current job) I get a lot of spam (as everyone else does) in, like, 50 different e-mail accounts from different places.

Many times, and I do mean many, these "big names" (like Amazon and many others) are forged.

Don't trust any "signature". They may be forged as well.


Even in the case this is not exactly forged, it's highy doubtful what is goin' on here.

disregard it.

You have written textbooks before right?

That's probably why you got this mail. They think you're an opinion leader.

I just didn't realize amazon would allow themselves to be used as an email forwarding service for aspiring authors, etc.

"P.S. We strive to avoid multiple mailings. Mistakes, however, happen, and we\'re sorry if you received this message twice. Please ignore it, then."

This line makes me suspicious that it is spam.

The link points to a real Amazon page though - and the fact that the URL includes "/invitation/viewinvite/" would indicate that Amazon has some sort of invitation system for people who are registered on the site.

Have you signed into Amazon from the provided link? Maybe you should just go to amazon.com, sign in and check your profile to see if you checked a box allowing other users to send you emails.

here's amazon's response to the email I sent them - seems the person was in violation of policy:

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Greetings from Amazon.com.

Thank you very much for your e-mail regarding the message you received
about the book "Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the
Middle East Conflict."

The individual who sent you this e-mail misused the "Amazon Friends"
feature on the Amazon.com web site in clear violation of our
policies. We have blocked this person's access to the feature and have
put additional security measures in place as well.

Our "Amazon Friends" feature is meant to be used as a way for
customers to connect and stay in touch with friends and family on
Amazon.com, and not in the manner it was used in this case.

Individuals do not need to know your e-mail address to send you an
invitation through this feature. However, you can limit all future
invitations you receive to only those people who know your e-mail
address. To do this:

1. Click the "Your Store" tab at the top of the web site.

2. Click "Your Profile" (found in the blue horizontal navigation bar).

3. Scroll down to the "Your Friends" section.

4. Click "See your pending invitations."

5. At the bottom of this page under "Blocking Preference," check the
box next to "Block invitations from people who don't know my e-mail
address."

6. Click the yellow button "Save preferences." This will prevent
people who don't know your e-mail address from inviting you to be
their friend, or sending you messages through this system.

Thank you very much for your e-mail.

Sincerely,

Customer Service Department
Amazon.com
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