Feature

To "BCC" or Not to "CC"

By Andrew MacDonald

Rogers Hi-Speed Internet

After growing up in the computer age and landing a job in the Internet business, it's no surprise that email has become my primary means of communication. Whether I'm catching up with friends across the country, or asking a co-worker sitting 10 feet away if he or she would like to go to lunch, chances are the dialogue was completed using email. Up until recently I thought I was quite good at it.

My messages are never long-winded and I have a sensible signature. I use the plain white default page layout and a regular Times or Arial font produced at a very legible 10-point size. However, after meeting with some friends to plan a party, it was brought to my attention that my email behaviour wasn't as polished as I thought it was.

This all came about because I had to mass email some invitations. The information I had to send wasn't personal, so I didn't feel I had to write each guest individually. So, I inserted each person's address into the "To..." and "CC..." email address fields end hit send. It turns out that this was quite uncouth. There could have been people in the mailing list who didn't want their addresses displayed to others. Now that email is such a common form of communication, people have become more cautious about whom they give their address to. It later occurred to me that mass mailing lists can also put people at risk of becoming targets of spammers if the email ever fell into the wrong inbox.

The solution: I should have entered my mailing list into the "BCC..." (blind carbon copy) field only, which would have hidden all the recipients' addresses. Each person would have received the same email, but the BCC command would hide the entire mailing list from view. This way, I would have protected each person's privacy without having to send individual emails to everyone on the guest list. After doing a bit of research, I found that this was just one of many email etiquette rules that I have been overlooking. Just so that you don't commit the same email faux pas, here are some of the more important etiquette guidelines I came across:

Attachments

Attaching files to an email can be a useful way to share important documents, but it can also be a real pain to recipients if the files are irrelevant or too big. Emailreplies.com also reminds surfers that because of the risk of downloading a computer virus, many people scan all the attachments they receive. This could be a waste of time for the recipient if the attachment you send isn't productive. Plus, if a virus is detected, important information will not have been delivered. So, selectively choose when to send an attachment.

www.Emailreplies.com has more information about email etiquette