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Using
BCC for Privacy People have become hypersensitive about their privacy during the last few years. They now expect that their details will be used only for the purposes for which they have been provided and not shared by original trustees. This is especially true of email addresses because of the huge volume of unsolicited email circulating the Internet. In Australia, the Privacy Act (Commonwealth) was recently amended to include private sector use of personal information eg, medical records retained by private practices. Although the Act only applies to specified organisations, there are not only sound business reasons, but legal reasons why you should ensure the strictest standards of privacy are applied to personal information of which you are custodian. Despite this, numbers of people using email unwittingly reveal the email addresses of other people to whom they are sending email. This article tells you how to maintain client confidentiality when sending email to multiple addressees by using Blind Carbon Copy or BCC. Blind Carbon Copy The term Blind Carbon Copy is a hangover from the dim, dark ages before word processors when we used typewriters (some of you have probably never seen a typewriter). To produce multiple copies of a document, one had to place a sheet of carbon paper between sheets of plain paper so that the type key impact on the top sheet would be copied to the second sheet (and any subsequent sheets). It was a somewhat messy, but proficient process. When one wanted to send an original letter to one person and copies to several other people without showing each recipient who the other recipients were, a BCC annotation was made on the original. Each copy displayed only the name and address of the individual recipient, but the BCC notation on the original showed to whom the copies had been mailed. A BCC looked like this: Bcc: Mr Tom Jones, 14 Weaving Court, East Melbourne VIC 3000 Some email programs allow you to enter email addresses into the BCC field and send them. When you do that each recipient receives your message, but the names of other recipients are not displayed. That is why they are called ‘blind’ – they are not seen. By using the BCC feature you preserve the identities of those who are on your mailing list and ensure that anyone receiving your email cannot email your list or harvest their email addresses and sell them. Your Email Program When you obtain an email program, make sure it has a ‘Blind Carbon Copy (BCC)’ feature. Programs such as Outlook Express and Outlook 2002 have BCC capability and although I have never used it, I'd be surprised if Eudora and other common email programs didn't have it too. If when you click to send a new email your email client displays only the To … and Cc … boxes it may be that the Bcc feature IS available, but is simply not displayed. Try the View menu or Help menu to see if you can find a Bcc option. If your email program has a BCC option that you can select as a permanently visible option, select it. If it doesn't, you may need to think about getting a new program. How to Use BCC When you send email messages to multiple addressees and you do not want each addressee to know who else has received a copy, use the Blind Carbon Copy field. Simply enter all the addresses in the BCC field separated by a semi-colon, comma, or whatever your program uses. When you click the send button, your email will go to each individual with only his or her name in the To field. None of the recipients knows to who else the email has been sent. Outlook 2002 will allow you to send BCC addressed email without an address in the To field. Other email clients require at least one address in the To field before they will allow multiple recipient addresses in the BCC field. Test your email program to see what works and what doesn’t. Test the program you use to see if it needs to have an addressee in the To field. If so, address it to yourself. (Surprisingly, email programs usually allow us to email ourselves ... that's why I receive so many emails from female admirers (just joking). If you need to make an entry in the To field, place your own email address in that field and everyone else’s address in the BCC field. Disadvantages What you need to know about BCC is that some spam filters automatically delete email addressed in the BCC field so it never reaches its destination. This means that while sending BCC is okay for privacy, your email might not always reach the intended recipients. A problem I had with Outlook Express 2002 was that if I sent my email using BCC I couldn't print a hard copy of the sent message with the addresses on it. I had to write address details on my file copies. If sending BCC email is likely to be impractical for you, then you need to consider upgrading your email client from the standard run-of-the-mill version to a professional version. That's what I did. Email Management Programs If, like me, you distribute large quantities of email regularly to newsletter subscribers, clients, club members, colleagues or anyone else, you will be better off getting a program designed for high volume mailings. I use Group Mail Pro which also has a heavy duty edition called Group Mail Professional and a free version with limited functionality so you can try before you buy. Group Mail Pro lets me do simply, many tasks not easy to achieve with standard email clients like Outlook 2002. For example, Group Mail will allow me to:
Group
Mail Pro also comes with some excellent plug-ins. For example, if you
don't have an HTML editor, you can download one that will allow you
to create HTML emails. It is competitively priced and excellent value for money. If you would like to learn more or buy a copy, click here. Best of luck with your business.Robin
Henry P:
+61 8 8953 4409 Copyright
2003 Robin Henry |
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