Blind Carbon Copy - How and Why to Use BCC

Avoid a Top Office Pet Peeve

Blind Carbon Copy, or BCC, is a little known aid in writing professional looking and etiquette-wise emails to multiple individuals.

Quite simply, Blind Carbon Copy ("Bcc:") is a replacement for Carbon Copy ("Cc:") and multiple "To:" entries that prevents each of the recipients from seeing the other recipient addresses that the email was sent to.

Now, on occasion, you want to use CC so that the recipient of your email is aware that someone else was sent the information also; whether as an implied threat (cc: your supervisor) or to let the recipient know that a mutual correspondent has the information also - no need for them to forward it on. I would dare say that most times, however, that is not the optimal solution.

Here are 4 reasons to use Blind Carbon Copy

A given recipient may not want his/her email address given out to others. This can be for privacy, which they are entitled to, or as a preventative means of reducing their own spam received. (See my article titled "SPAM - 7 Steps to Prevent SPAM".)

Early e-letter writers had a habit of putting everyone's address in either the "to:" or "cc:" field. Everyone then saw everyone else's address. I know a banker who did this once and had several recipients call his boss demanding his termination (he kept his job but offered an apology). I saw some very interesting names in this list; and I had the opportunity - which I did NOT take - to record their email address.

Conflicting personalities and interests. Either you or a recipient may not want everyone on the list to know there is an affiliation between two or more of the other parties in the recipient list. This might be for business purposes or personal relationships.

Increase readability. Having 10, 20, 30 or more email addresses listed takes more space on the screen when viewing, looks unprofessional, and takes a lot more space if anyone forwards the email without using my advice from my article "Email Etiquette - Making YOU Look Good" to remove to/from info from any forwarded email.