It may sound so obvious, given how long we've had email, but you'd be amazed at how people still don't know what the "bcc" stands for in emails.

When you enter the recipient's email address in the "To:" column, there is also a column for "cc" and "bcc". "cc" is "carbon copy" and is basically just for passing on a copy of the email to someone else. However, "cc" won't hide the actual email address and will be visible to anyone who receives and / or opens the email. I know, you probably know all of this already but as I said, you'd be amazed how many people don't know.

Now "bcc" is much better (in my opinion) because it cloaks the email addresses, making them invisible to everyone except the person that sent the email in the first place. All the other recipients see is the person's name but NOT the email address. Now this is good because if you are sending an email to a large group of people, you have no idea who will receive that email afterwards. Chain emails such as jokes get forwarded to a lot of people so who's to know who will receive that email next week or next month? One of them might be a spammer or might be someone who knows a spammer. Suddenly that huge list of visible email contacts are wide open for a spammer to harvest and abuse. The "bcc" feature stops all that.

So......keep the "to" and "cc" fields blank and place ALL the email addresses in the "bcc" column. That way, none of the email addresses are visible for someone to read and abuse

On the subject of email, I read an excellent article today in the Wall Street Journal about taming your inbox. Well worth a read.