10.28.2005

BCC - something everyone should know about

I would like to spread the word about BCC, the blind copy function in most email programs. When sending an email to a group of people, it's a good practice to send it to yourself and BCC the other recipients. This way each person that receives the email will only see the sender's email address. The recipients' addresses will be hidden from each other.

If an email is sent with everyone's addresses listed in the TO: field, the addresses are visible to all recipients. If just one person decides to use that information maliciously, then it can start a chain reaction of spam and unwanted emails. Even if the original sender is careful about whom he/she sends email addresses to, it only takes one person to make a headache for all the other recipients. To real technical savvy people it's considered common courtesy to BCC all group emails.

3 comments:

John B said...

Great web/email ettiquet, Aimee. Glad to hear you think of these things. I am sure it has nothing to do with your husbands ranting on the same subject.

Jennifer said...

I TOTALLY agree! I really think someone should write a book on computer etiquette and publish it, or maybe there is one. Hmmm, worth investigating. Ha! Then people could send it as Christmas gift to all their friends with poor computer etiquette.

Unknown said...

yes... very very well put. :-)