Starting around the middle of March 2007, a number of fake emails purporting to be PayPal receipts for The Apache Software Foundation have made their way around the globe.

The Apache Software Foundation has very likely not charged any payment to your PayPal account.

Unfortunately, a spammer seems to have reused a standard PayPal template and has sent this same exact email to many many many people around the world. We are just a victim as you all are - we have not sold or captured your emails to anyone (it's very likely we have no idea who you are nor you us!).

We suspect that the spammer made a small donation to us via PayPal to capture PayPal's template and subsequently spammed all of you with a fake receipt in an attempt to steal PayPal credentials. This is an unfortunate instance of Phishing. For more information on Phishing, see:

• http://www.antiphishing.org/

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing

If you do not use PayPal, you can simply ignore the spam email. If you do use PayPal, you should immediately contact PayPal's customer support to ensure that your account has not been abused. This is especially urgent if you followed the link provided by the spammer and entered your account information.

Here is some specific information from PayPal:

• Understanding Phishing

• https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/cps/securitycenter/general/UnderstandPhishing-outside

• They also suggest forwarding the spam to spoof@paypal.com

In the highly unlikely event that you do see an actual payment from your PayPal account to The Apache Software Foundation (and you didn't intend it!), please contact us immediately.