This is a hoax based on a number of old chain e-mails, such as Bill Gates, Amway and AOL E-Mail Tracking, AOL and Intel Merger, etc. It first appeared in 2002.
As usual these hoaxes are targeted at those that are not yet cynical enough ;-) There is no such promotion, and no such way to track e-mail (yet) it's just a hoax and a silly chain e-mail.
Subject: Fwd: Re: FW: Fw: THIS IS FOR REAL. IT WAS ON THE NEWS LAST NIGHT. Dear Friends, Please do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates is sharing his fortune. If you ignore this you will repent later. Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet companies and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program, Microsoft and AOL are running an e-mail beta test. When you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft can and will track it (if you are a Microsoft Windows user) for a two week time period. For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00, for every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives it, you will be paid $241.00. Within two weeks, Microsoft will contact you for your address and then send you a cheque. Regards. Chinu! I thought this was a scam myself, but two weeks after receiving this e-mail and forwarding it on, Microsoft contacted me for my address and within days, I received a cheque for US$24,800.00. You need to respond before the beta testing is over. If anyone can afford this Bill Gates is the man. It's all marketing expense to him. Please forward this to as many people as possible. You are bound to get at least US$10,000.00.
If you receive a message about this then please ignore it and don't pass it on as this only serves to propagate it.