What would you think of a proposed Mozilla Thunderbird add-on (and/or Google Labs feature for GMail) that checks the text of e-mail you are about to forward against the Snopes.com database of urban legends, hoaxes and scams, and warns you if it has found a close match? Would this be useful for you or anyone you know (e.g. that annoying relative whose forwarded chain letters make up 70% of your incoming mail)? Or would you deem it too intrusive into the privacy of people's e-mail?

Just testing the waters here. I know 4channelers are hardly representative of normal people on the net, but I figure I have to start somewhere.

I don't know about this. The target demographic (people that send these annoying chain letters) is pretty gullible and already likely has 12+ annoying spyware add-ons already. It seems like a good idea, but people who believe what chain letters have to say don't believe in reason anyway.

As an aside (joke), why bother marketing this product or even ask people to install it? Just have it set up on your side to recognize chain letters and auto-respond with a link for them to follow. These being the same people that click on HOT_PORN.EXE, they're very likely to end up installing your software for you accidentally. Rather than warn people about chain letters, simply install a filter on their system that eliminates them from their inbox in the first place. You could also install the initial filter/auto-responder too and slowly get to the source of this nonsense. Think of it as a helpful worm...