Chain mail greatly upsets and annoys those who receive it, regardless of whether the recipient believes in it or not. It simply boils down to misused and wasted computing resources. Because mail processing requires the message to be appended to each individual's mailbox, this type of netiquette violation wastes an incredible amount of computer and network resources. Everything we said about the previous type of offense applies to this type just as well. Although postings about controversial topics, commercial advertising, and promotion of private interest tend to draw the most clamor for resolution, seemingly valid and innocuous postings like a survey about e-mail usage also draw angry reactions from the Internet.
Netiquette violations do a lot more than raise eyebrows.
Those who get upset will reply and because a large audience is usually involved, the number of responses traveling back and forth across the Internet take up precious bandwidth that could have been used for more worthwhile traffic. An overwhelming number of replies also puts stress on the system where the unwanted message originated. System managers need to monitor their system's well-being and have to spend time responding to complaints from angry users who demand that the individual who sent the unsolicited message be immediately brought to justice. A good day's work can quickly be spent doing damage control caused by bad network etiquette. Therefore, exercise restraint before sending a reply to the offender or a complaint to the system manager because there is a good chance that someone else has already done so.