Tech Tips
Are You Helping The Spammer?
Have you ever received an email with a long list
of email addresses at the top, where you might
expect to see just yours? This is caused by the
sender putting the list of email recipients in the
To or the CC (Carbon Copy) boxes when they
compose the email. Everyone on the list will be
able to see the email addresses of everyone
else on the list. If the list is simply an email from
one friend to a bunch of other friends then there is probably no problem, but what if the list is of
people who belong to a club or an organisation? Or what if some of the friends would not want
their email address listed to the entire group? Maybe they don’t really like all of them. Suddenly
everyone gets your email address.
The problem can be worse than that though. What if someone on the list is in business in some
way, or has a friend who is? They now have your email address and they know you are probably
interested in whatever the email is about. Bring on the targeted email SPAM.
What should the sender do instead if they want to send an email to lots of people? They should
use the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) entry box instead. This works in the same way as the CC box
except that only the sender can see all the email addresses. Sadly, many email programs hide the
BCC box away and you have to choose to show it, but if you intend to send an email to more than
one person it really is essential to find the BCC and use it.
If you are in business in any way, then it is even more vital that you don’t give away email
addresses. It can be considered a criminal offense to give away or make available personal
information about a customer – and that includes their email address.
Unfortunately there is little you can do to stop people misusing your email address in this way apart
from try to educate them as to the dangers. But one thing you can do is stop using CC yourself and
move over to BCC.
Email Address Farming
Anyone who uses email will receive SPAM, or unwanted emails. Some will be from ‘Nigerian
Princes’ or ‘Lawyers representing someone who wants to give you money’. These are all, of
course, poor attempts to part you from your hard earned money. Some SPAM emails are less
obvious in what they are trying to do though. Have you ever received an email asking you to
buy (for example) watches or other quite reasonable, but unwanted products? You ignore the
first email, and then you get another one a few days later. You might ignore that one as well but
eventually you will get tired of seeing them and notice an unsubscribe option at the bottom. Hurrah
you think, I’ll unsubscribe and stop them coming.
Unfortunately, if you click on unsubscribe what you might unwittingly do is increase the value of
your email address to other spammers. Spammers buy email addresses – unconfirmed ones are
cheap, but an email address that has received a response of any kind is more valuable and so,
instead of reducing the emails you receive, the unsubscribe option in these cases can result in you
receiving far more.
Naturally, most of the emails with an unsubscribe option are genuine since it is an EU requirement
to allow people to opt out easily, but the ones to watch for are those from places you have never
signed up for or even dealt with.
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