â??beware of Greeks bearing giftsâ??: The phrase comes from Virgil’s poem of the Trojan war (The Aeneid) and represents an interpretation to the phrase spoken by Laocoon attempting to warn the Trojans not to bring the wooden horse into the city, â??Whatever it is, I fear Greeks even when they bring gifts.â?? (Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes). Naturally the Trojans did not listen and they were massacred. More on the story at wikipedia.
So when I received an email recommending a privacy story my paranoia reminded me of Loacoon. The mail began: â??Thought you might be interested in reading and possibly linking to the following story published in the Star-Telegramâ?? â?? the story was on the use of biometrics at Disney Theme parks, written by two students. Interesting but definitely old news. Even I wrote about it ages ago (July 2005)
I have never heard of the Star-Telegram nor of the sender of the email. So I began to dig. The first clue came from the email address @trylonsmr.com this mail comes from an account director at a â??Strategic Media Relationsâ?? company.
Why would someone I do not know, working at a PR firm want to draw my attention to a mildly interesting news story? It was not even a news story really more an information piece. So I checked my logs.
It seems like the PR firm searches for blogs on technorati and then emails them with â??newsâ?? stories. The idea would most probably be to create increased interest in their clients. This is confirmed by the email which includes a paragraph about a cooperation between four schools of journalism.
My problem is that I would probably have linked to the story and I have no real problem linking to the journalism project. But the use of the PR firm sending friendly emails as if they were concerned about privacy issues (which I am) just makes the whole thing â?? sad.
I will not post their story since it is not the story they are interested in â?? they are marketers and spammers. Please correct me if I am wrong.
I realise that this post has been thin on the details but that is because I do not inadvertently want to do what the email attempted to manipulate me into doing.