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There is something that really bugs me no matter how many times I see it happening. That is when my email address turns up in a group email addressed to dozens of people. What am I saying? That I don’t want to receive emails sent to groups? Not at all. I like to receive emails if they are relevant to me. I just don’t like to receive an email that lists my email address in amongst anything from five to thirty others… ready for spam harvesting.

Now I am not going to re-invent the wheel here. There are lots of great websites out there explaining the why’s, wherefore’s, howto’s and moral reasons for all of this. I just want to say that if you are new to email, please read what they have to say as it makes a big difference.

My personal testimony is that only recently, after 2 years of not even one single spam email, I have started to be inundated with spam. Why? Only recently has my email address been sent out to groups of people WITHOUT using this BCC technique.

The BCC Field – James S. Huggins

My friends send me “stuff”. And organizations I belong to send me “stuff”. And mailing lists I am on send me “stuff”. When you send people stuff you can send it in two distinct ways: 1. So that everyone can see everybody else’s email address, and 2. So that everyone can’t see everybody else’s email address.

When you put the email addresses in the “To” field or in the “CC” field, everyone can see everyone else’s email address. But, when you use the “BCC” field, the system hides the addresses of everyone else. I am writing this page to encourage everyone to learn about the “BCC” field and to learn how to use it…

Your E-Mail Responsibility – Duane Alan Hahn

If you would like to do something to protect your friends and family from spammers, stalkers, swindlers, and who knows what else, use BCC instead of To or CC when sending group e-mails. You might think that it’s not a big deal, but when you send a group e-mail without using BCC, it’s usually not just going to be seen by the people you send it to. They will send it to their friends, and they will send it to their friends, and it goes on and on until all of those e-mail addresses get in the hands of ‘evil doers.’

Blind Carbon Copy – (How-to with images) [LINK NO LONGER WORKS]

Usually when someone sends an email to say, four people, they will just list them in the “to:” or “cc:” field. The problem with this practice is simple: everyone who receives the email also receives all of the email addresses. This is wonderful for spammers, but most of us would rather our email addresses were at least somewhat protected.

How to Protect Your Email Address – MailNull

There are ways to fight spam by filtering and other mechanisms, many of which provide excellent coverage. However there are always the ones the sneak through and there is also the worrying prospect of the important message classified as spam. One of the foolproof mechanisms for having a spam-free inbox involves starting with a “fresh” email address and protecting it aggressively. This means dropping the address you have currently, getting a new one, and letting your contacts know about the switch. Once you are on a spam list, it is basically impossible to ever get off. The “mail here to unsubscribe” are almost always fake and will do more harm than good.

I hope that after visiting each of these websites and reading what they have to say, that you are now a wiser and more wary netizen.