When is Marketing not Marketing?

The other day, I received this email from a seemingly random Hotmail user:

Chris,
The Virtual Earth team has a new website for info on VE. Could you blog about it to get some more exposure for it?
http://www.virtualearthinfo.com/
Thanks,
ZG

I'm protecting his real name for a reason. My first thought was: “Why do these PR flacks even bother?” I immediately shot an email off to my MSN contacts, asking about this person. They searched the company directory and came up with no results. The name was passed around and, ultimately, it belonged to a stepson of a Virtual Earth team member! It wasn't marketing spam after all – merely an innocent request by a kid who is very proud of his father's work.
You took me by surprise, ZG. I'm not mad at your actions, and I hope you weren't admonished for sending that note to me. It was a very endearing effort, and any parent should be proud to have you in their family.

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