Proper E-mail Address Etiquette
Correctly Using To:, CC: & BCC: Addressing
TO: CC: and BCC: - Respecting Privacy - Putting it into Practice
Creating and Maintaining Group Lists - Other E-mail Issues
TO: CC: and BCC:
What is the Difference?
Most people know how to address mail TO: people when creating a new message. However, they are less sure about the two other options, CC: (carbon copy) and BCC: (blind carbon copy).
If you are mailing the message to only one address then the TO: option should be used. When more than one person is included in the address you have to determine what is the best way to address mail so that many addresses are not listed for the recipients unless it is absolutely necessary in the context of the message.
Respecting Privacy
Avoid Long Lists of Addresses
Few things are as irritating as receiving a message with a page or more of e-mail addresses followed by only four lines of text. Not only is this poor etiquette, but it also invites misuses of those addresses by any of the recipients or anyone they might forward the message to.
Privacy of E-mail Addresses
When people provide you with an e-mail address, either directly or by sending you a message, there is usually the implicit expectation that you will not reveal it to others without their permission.
What's the big deal?
Just as you wouldn't appreciate your place of employment giving out personal contact information, many people feel the same way about their e-mail address. In fact, privacy has become a serious issue on the Internet and concern will continue to grow as people realize the commercial value of their private information and the problem of spam (unsolicited and unwanted commercial or non-commercial e-mails) affects more people.
Spam - Out of Control
The volume of spam has become so large compared to legitimate mail that it threatens the future of e-mail.
There is more information about this issue on the Avoiding Spam and Copyright Abuses page.
Putting it into Practice
Use BCC: to Hide Address Lists
Blind Carbon Copy will hide the address list from all the recipients. Only the person's own address will appear. Some e-mail programs place "undisclosed recipients" in that address field instead. You may wish to indicate the general nature of the address list at the beginning of your message. Using a generic term such as "forwarded to the production team" lets people know who else has received the message without revealing names or address information.
Use CC: to Inform
Carbon Copy will reveal the address list but is used in place of the To: to indicate that the message is sent to those persons for information purposes only. It is not used when the other recipients may not know the address.
An Example
This sample message will illustrate the use and the effect of these various addressing options in a message:
TO: john_doe@jones.com
CC: mary_smith@jones.com
BCC: sam_jones@jones.com
Subject: sales figures
Last year sales increased by 15% and costs decreased 5%.
Jim White (jim_white@jones.com)
All recipients will be aware of both John Doe and Mary Smith. Only Jim White (the sender) and Sam Jones (BCC:) are aware that Sam Jones received a copy of the message.
In a much more likely scenario where a large group is blind carbon copied you can appreciate the result -- a clean message free of long address lists and the maintenance of individual privacy.
Creating and Maintaining Group Lists
When sending message to large groups of people on a frequent basis it is useful to set up a "group" address to save you the effort of selecting all the recipients each time you send a message to the group.
BCC: by Group
Your e-mail program will have the ability to do this using a "Group" function in the Address Book. You can create a group category, then add all the appropriate addresses in that group. An address may appear in more than one group and a group may contain anywhere from one to hundreds of addresses.
Use the Blind Carbon Copy (BCC:) addressing option to select the group address when you want to send a message to the whole group. Everyone will receive the message listed with that group address, yet no addresses will appear on each message except that of the sender and possibly each recipient only in their own message.
Use Opt-in not Opt-out
The way you set up your group lists makes a big difference. Opt-in is always preferable because it places the onus on the person to get onto your list. Don't assume that they want your joke list or commercial message
Many lists now ensure that a person really has opted-in by sending a confirming message in reply to any request to get onto their list. If no confirming reply is received the address is removed automatically from the list.
Provide for Continuing Choices
You should always provide some way for people to opt-out with each message. The most common is to reply to the message with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line.
Keep in mind that spammers also include a remove option in their messages, but most are either ignored at best or used to confirm e-mail addresses at worst. If the person you are sending to has no reason to expect messages from you they are likely to treat your message as spam.
Some jurisdictions have severe penalties for senders of unsolicited mail. You should also be sure that each person will find your mail appropriate, and not a waste of their time.
Other E-mail Issues
When dealing with e-mail there are some other issues that this site deals with in other locations.
- If you use Outlook or Outlook Express, or compose your e-mail messages with MS Word, you'll need to know that you create an attachment called winmail.dat that is invisible to you, but creates problems for viewers using other e-mail programs.
- Similarly, if you create e-mail newsletters, you'll want to view the suggestions to create the best experience for your readers.
www.RussHarvey.bc.ca/resources/email.html
Updated: March 8, 2006
