Day 2 – Email Etiquette

Yesterday, I was involved in a very frustrating email situation.  Someone from an organization (that shall remain unnamed, because I am not a fan and really think it is a scam) sent an email to about 150 people who do not know each other using the CC field.  This is poor email etiquette, because email addresses are being shared without permission.

When you compose an email, you have to two fields to put your recipients into:  CC and BCC.  The CC (courtesy copy) field is when you are having a group conversation and everybody knows each other.  For example, organizing a family reunion or working on a group project for school.  If you “reply all”, then all the people in the CC field will receive your reply.

The BCC field stands for blind carbon copy.  The recipients in this field cannot see the other recipients in this field.  This field is used to keep email addresses private as well as hid other possible recipients. For example, a company that sends out an email coupon would put all the recipients into the BCC field, so the customers can’t see each other.  Organizations should also be using this for mass emails. When you “reply all” and you are in the BCC field it will only go to those in the CC field and the sender of the email.

Now, the story gets even worse.  Instead of replying to the sender, people were using the reply all button for additional information and to be taken off the list.  This created a lot of unnecessary email coming in to my email, while not a tragedy it is extremely annoying.  The reply button will only reply back to the original sender.  The reply all button will reply back to the sender and everyone in the CC field.

Rant over.  Thank you for listening.