Legal Commentary

email etiquette: use Bcc for groups, please

By David A. Giacalone

Twice this past week, an otherwise-thoughtful person sent an email to me and dozens of other people, putting all of our names in the “To” field. Like many of you reading this now, neither Sender stopped to think that they were invading the privacy of recipients who did not want to share their email addresses with one or more of the other addressees — and who rightly want to make that choice for themselves. Even worse, because the Senders requested or expected the messages to be forwarded to many others, they set the stage for much broader privacy invasion and unwanted spamming. (In addition, one created a great risk of swamped In Boxes by asking responders to “Reply to All”).

Frankly, in the year 2008, you don’t have to be as cranky as our Prof. Yabut to be annoyed by the netiquette faux pas that we call The Too-Full To-Field Syndrome. After trying to diplomatically explain this problem to many correspondents over the past decade using return email, I’ve finally remembered that I have this little soapbox for exposing and explaining (kvetching and korrecting).

Summary: (explanations and instructions below):

• Sending Original Email: Do not send an email message to more than one person by putting their names in the “To” field (unless you are certain that each recipient has already shared his or her email address with every other recipient and will not forward their addresses to others). Instead, use the Bcc field [from “background carbon copy”]. Each recipient will receive a personally-addressed Bcc copy, with the email address shielded from the other recipients.
• Forwarding: If you are going to forward an email that has the addresses of prior recipients in it (the address is there, even if you only see the name on the To or Cc line), first remove all prior email addresses. [Yes, you can delete anything that you see in your email window, the same way you delete any text in a document.]

Lucky for all of us, Judith Kallos has thought about this netiquette problem, and hundreds thousands of others, and shares her knowledge with clear and lively prose, at NetManners.com, plus two weblogs [E-mail Etiquette Matters and the Business Etiquette Blog], as well as in several books. Her goal: “Using Technology to Communicate with Knowledge, Understanding and Courtesy!”

Therefore, rather than my turgidly judgmental preaching, here are some of Judith Kallos’ lessons for those who answer “yes” to the question: Do you forward emails with everyone’s email address in the To: field?

“Email Etiquette Info Courtesy of NetManners.com”

Her Essay “Courtesy #1” offers the minimal online basics you need to know “in order to be taken seriously in your online communications,” and advises:

Full post as published by f/k/a . . . on July 26, 2008 (boomark / email).