A short lesson in internet etiquette

Open your preferred e-mail client, either on your computer (Outlook Express, Apple Mail) web-based (too many to list) and open up a blank email. At the top of the window, there should be three boxes: "To:" "Cc:" and "Bcc:" If there is no Bcc box, hunt around for the option to enable it; these boxes in general and that one in particular, will be our focus today.

"To:" is simple enough; the addresses you type there are the people you want to send the email to.

"Cc:" is well known as well. It stands for "carbon copy" and will send a duplicate message to any addresses entered there.

"Bcc:" is not so well known, and probably the most important box. It stands for "blind carbon copy" and functions like the To: or Cc: box but with one important difference: when several addresses are entered into the Bcc: box, all of the extra addresses are stripped from each recipients copy. The only email addresses they see are yours and their own.

The Bcc: box is important when sending one email to many different people, many of whom do not know each other, and most of whom would appreciate you not sharing their email address with several hundred of your closest strangers.

I'm sure right now, you have at least one message in your inbox with addresses of 10 or 15 relative strangers included at the top. If the originator of the message had used the Bcc: box, you would not see any of those addresses. If you decide to forward that email, all those addresses will be forwarded too, and likely to people who are complete unknowns to address owner. This is how email addresses eventually end up in the hands of spammers. It also greatly increases the size of the email, which can be a problem for congested networks and people still stuck on dial up. I once received a 20 word email with more than 700 addresses pasted onto the top. It was from a department chair letting every single education major in the university know about a class that was added for the next semester.

Unless it is absolutely vital that each person you send something to know who else has received it, use the Bcc: field; you'll make a lot of people (or at least me) very happy.