Do You Copy? What Can Go Wrong with BCC
Try to find someone who has not โreplied allโ when meaning to send to only one individual. Itโs embarrassing and can aggravate those people with more emails flooding their box. Another common email gaffe is misusing the CC and BCC fields in outgoing messages. This mistake can prove costly for business.
Youโll likely have noticed those extra fields below the โToโ field in your email client. CC stands for carbon copy, and BCC for blind carbon copy.
When you use CC, itโs like youโve imprinted your message on an old blue sheet of carbon paper. The email copy sends to your To recipients as well as anyone you have CCโd. All recipients can see who else you sent your message to. This is a great way to encourage collaboration and accountability.
When you use BCC, your To recipient and anyone else you BCCโd gets the email, but youโre not showing where you sent the message. This is for when youโre addressing a large group of contacts that may not know each other, or when you are sending a group message but you want to respect the privacy of all your recipients.
The Blind Carbon Copy Nightmare
A big problem is using To or CC when meaning to use BCC. You inadvertently expose all your contactsโ email addresses. Personal contact information needs protection, and peopleโs privacy demands respect. You donโt want to make this mistake with a single or a few emails, or worse still hundreds or thousands of emails.
There are many examples of BCC blunders. West Ham United Football Club faces the UKโs Information Commissionerโs Office fines for confirming all season ticket holders with email addresses in the CC field. In another example, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was fined US$260,000 for exposing possible victims of child abuse in the same way.
Scotlandโs National Health Service messaged transgender patients with their addresses in the To field. Instead of using BCC, the sender used an open distribution list. This shared 86 Glasgow patient email addresses and, perhaps, patient names and dates of birth when the addresses incorporated those details. You can bet there were some heated replies to that message, although the reports didnโt share whether they were โreply allโ or not.
Also, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on a real estate company employee mistakenly CCโing 300 customer emails. A customer complained. The error resulted in a six-figure aftermath. Lawyers, a consulting firm, and eight full-time employees worked on a data breach response plan for weeks.
Whatโs Better Than BCC
Any CC or BCC blunder could be a data breach. Take care. Donโt risk the loss of customer trust and possible compliance issues.
When you need to send out an email to a large group of people when youโre not necessarily expecting a response, use mailing software such as Mailchimp. Email marketing platforms send an individual copy of your message to every person on your mailing list, so thereโs no risk of your contact list being exposed.
Need help setting up your email client or getting up to speed on an email marketing platform? We can help. Contact us today at (615) 522-0080.
Safe Network Solutions is a technology consulting firm located in Nashville, TN. We are focused on reducing our Clientsโ stress and the time they spend handling IT related issues. As technology has become more integrated with daily business tasks, downtime is not an option. Whether your systems reside on-premise, in the cloud, or in a hybrid setup, you need a partner with expertise in a wide array of technologies, with a security focus.
