Do you ever receive an email with a bunch of names, a message and a bunch more names? Very often, those of us using email regularly, do receive an interesting story, joke or even important information.  It seems to be a natural tendency to want to share what we’ve received with others.

I’ve occasionally done this myself, making certain I abide by the following rule. From my perspective,  common courtesy and respect for privacy of others dictates DELETING  all the names and addresses  that show within the body of the email.

Keep in mind also, by passing on others people’s names in group emails, you are subjecting their email addresses to the possibility of being picked up by spammers.

The usual way that people often pass on these messages is to simply click the “forward” icon, or arrow, in the piece of email received. They, then,  start typing in all the addresses of their friends in the new email form that comes up.

When the list is complete, they simply click SEND.  Many times, it seems, that they do not pay attention to all the other addresses from prior forwards that have remained in their email body.

Even if they delete them, unless the names of their friends are placed into the BCC: (blind copy) field, it’s likely that their friends’ names will show up in someone else’s forwarded email.  (If you do not know how to do it, see my post on how to set up your emails to include BCC field)

Again, please be sure also to delete the sender’s name and email address and delete all the names and email addresses that might have been picked up when you hit forward.

Final Note on this post:
1 – Be sure to check that the email addresses you’ve entered are, in fact, those of the people you do mean to address.  Sometimes, as we type, the computer picks up an address similar to the one we think we are including.  It could turn out to be a totally different person.