Once upon a time, netiquette demanded that, when sending an e-mail to a bunch of people simultaneously, you put all addresses in the “BCC” field (with something like your own address in the “To” field). As far as I know, the idea was to protect the recipients’ privacy and not expose their e-mail addresses to someone on the distribution list who might hijack them or sell them or something.
I adhered to this guideline for a long time…until I noticed that some of the e-mails I received that followed this practice had been sent to my bulk mail folder by mistake. By that time I had also cut down on my sending of cute or funny e-mails (I never sent forwarded e-mails, just to be clear: I would send stuff like links or statements that I came across and felt were worth sharing. I’ve cut down on even that kind of mail, though.).
These days, I prefer to put all addresses in the “To” field (and I prefer receiving e-mail that way, too). Not only do I want to avoid having my message sent to anyone’s bulk mail folder by mistake, but I’ve adopted the opinion that sometimes it’s handy for the recipients to know who else the e-mail was sent to. Also, I only send e-mail to people I know and trust, so I’m not worried about anyone’s privacy being violated.
What do you think? Should “mass” e-mails use the BCC field for addresses in the BCC field, or is it ok to have a list in the “To” field for all the world to see? Is using the BCC field still considered proper netiquette?
One way of circumventing this that I found was to create a mailing list that included the people that I was going to regularly include on “mass” emailings (a list of maybe 5 people at that point). I can’t remember now how to do it, since I haven’t done it in ages, but basically the only thing the recipients see is the name of the “group” that you address it to, and not the individual email addresses. Looking at an email that I recently received in this way, and looking at the full headers, I see my name in the “Apparently to:” field, but I’m 100% certain that I’m not the only person that it was sent to, so it still offers a little bit of privacy, and doesn’t automatically relegate your email to the bulk spam box.
Sorry for not having info on how to set it up though. It might just be as simple as setting up a distribution group.
I prefer not to have my name displayed in Mass mailings, only because there have been a few (admittedly rare) occasions where someone else on the mailing list was someone I did not want to have my email address.
I actually prefer people to BCC and have done so myself. But my friends all made fun of me for doing so, and I no longer do. None-the-less, I would prefer to be the one to let people know my email address.
On the very rare occasion I send out an email to a number of recipients, I put myself in both the to and from slots, and everybody else in BCC.
There are a lot of nutjobs that my friends know that personally, I DON’T want to have my email address…it is bad enough that I can get pinned in a corner and told that <insert rant of total oblivious nonsense here like moon landing is fake> when I go visit them when they have a party, but I really don’t want to be suddemly put on a mailing list for raw food fanatics, ph diet fanatics, and people who believe in every thing quackwatch says is false.
You would not believe some of the email I got from one raw food email list that I got onto and couldn’t manage to get off…thankfully I was using a hotmail address so I didnt mind losing the address and starting another one =\
I personally don’t like other people getting my email address unless I’ve chosen to give it to them, and I really (really really) don’t like knowing that some dipstick on that list is likely to forward the entire thing to their friends without removing the previous addresses.
The problem with sending BCC in Outlook Express is that later if you look at your sent mail it won’t tell you who received the BCC stuff you sent (ie, in my case it just says I emailed Khiadra).
So what I do is to include in the first line of the email:
“Sent to Rob, Roy, Bill, Jane, and Harry via the happy-relationships miracle that is BCC”
My friends actually appreciate it since they don’t like random strangers getting their email addresses either, and plus they know who else has received it and therefore who not to forward it to.
Here’s one for the ‘brain fart’ thread. I glanced at this and saw the general shape of the username, and thought… ‘woah, I don’t remember having replied to this previously!’
Closely followed by ‘… and since when don’t I do it?’. (look of extreme puzzlement)
Thanks for your thoughts, everyone. Seems like I’m trying to bend netiquette to my will. I will go back to my “bcc” ways the next time I send out an e-mail to a handful of folks.
I know how to set up lists like that, but I never send e-mails to the exact same group of people twice. I tailor the distribution list each time, depending on what I’m sending out. It’s a great suggestion for folks who send out mass e-mails to the same people all (or most) of the time, though.
What an excellent idea! I primarily use Yahoo Mail, which does let me see the BCC field on e-mails that I’ve sent, but that is a really great way to solve the “no one knows who else is getting this” issue while still protecting everyone’s privacy.
I will go back to my “bcc” ways the next time I send out an e-mail to a handful of folks.