The Proper Way to Use BCC at Work

Ah, the infamous BCC-or blind carbon copy-the handy option that lets you send e-mails to undisclosed recipients. Some Corporate Americans love this nifty little feature in their e-mail programs, while some curse the creator who thought of it. The cause of this love/hate relationship can be pinned on those who abuse the "BCC" function.

Below are two examples of how the BCC function is commonly misused:

1. You receive an e-mail with a presentation for tomorrow's team meeting. You notice in the presentation that there is a material error in the amount of expenses incurred for your group for the year. You reply to the sender of the e-mail (who is also the author of the presentation) noting the error and BCC your boss-just to let him or her know as an "FYI" that you caught that error and was "helping" your teammate to have correct information.

2. You receive an inappropriate joke e-mail at work that is offensive. You respond to the co-worker that sent the e-mail and let him or her know that you find the e-mail to be inappropriate. You BCC your boss, their boss, and/or the Human Resources department.

Your co-workers may feel deceived if they discover that you have used a BCC in your correspondence with them. The use of BCC is commonly exposed when the blind recipient hits "Reply All" or forwards the e-mail to someone else, or if a blind recipient approaches the intentionally copied person regarding the e-mail when that person expects the details of the e-mail to be between just the two parties that are shown in the e-mail.

So how exactly should "BCC" be used?

According to Judith Kallos with NetManners.com, a web site dedicated to the topics of e-mail and Internet etiquette, "BCC is best used to protect your contacts' e-mail addresses from being exposed to strangers." In other words, BCC protects recipients from having their e-mail addresses harvested and keeps e-mail lists private.

As an example of why e-mail privacy is important, millions of e-mail forwards are sent around the world daily. Imagine someone having access to all of the e-mail addresses that were included (as people continued to forward the e-mails, but did not delete the recipient e-mail addresses). Then imagine that someone creating their own e-mail list and constantly spamming. This is why it is important to keep addresses private.

In addition, BCC should be used if you have a very long list of e-mail addresses in order to keep the e-mail shorter. An e-mail that has 50 recipients takes up a lot of space in the "to" field of the e-mail, thus making it more difficult for the readers to get to the actual message.

The Right Way to Do Things

To protect yourself from any confusion or ill feelings at work, avoid using BCC unless you are using it just to protect people's e-mail addresses.

If you are responding to multiple people regarding the same e-mail, forward the message separately with an explanation to each person.

Never, ever use a BCC to make someone look bad or "e-tattle." This would offend the person you are tattling on and in turn, could make you look bad.