Most people when sending email send using the to line, some even venture
to the cc line (carbon copy) but very few venture into the realms of the
Bcc line (blind carbon copy).
The answer is usually because they are blissfully unaware of the existence of
the Bcc line. Most email clients including Outlook Express and IncrediMail
do not show the Bcc line on the default new email form when composing an
email.
To Use the Bcc line you must normally first enable it. These screen shots
show how to enable Bcc in Outlook Express . The process for Incredimail is similar.
The Bcc line (blind copy)is used to send email to someone without other
recipients of the email being aware that it was sent to those recipients. It is
effectively a way of hiding email recipients from each other. Its main use is when
sending email to mailing lists ( email groups).
If you send an email to recipients using the to and or the cc line
the recipients of the email can clearly see who the email was sent to. If one of
the recipients was a mailing list then all recipients can clearly see the recipients
on the mailing list.
Consequences of not using the Bcc field
2) If anyone does a "reply to all", the reply is sent to everyone on both the
original "to and cc" line.
Putting the mailing list on the Bcc line solves both of these problems.
I would urge anyone who sends email to mailing lists or mailing groups to consider
using the Bcc line in future. However it is especially important for very large
mailing lists and confidential lists.
