Sending BCC emails- unethical

[AcrobatMan]

Of late I have been receiving quite a few emails Bcced to me. These are sent by my colleagues/friends. I dont think sending BCCs is the best thing but I am not sure how to tell them . Infact I think they would argue that sending BCC is good as it protect privacy of email ids. But my feeling is that sending BCC emails is unethical. Anybody else agrees with me.


AcrobatMan

 

[beli]

Depends. I frequently BCC at work as there are about 100 Safety Personnel that I need to email at a time. If I put all their addresses in the "To" box and they wanted to print my email out the first page of printing would just be a long list of email addresses - ie a waste of trees.

My emails usually start "To All Safety Personnel" or "To All Building Wardens" so they know they arent the only ones receiving it. (I only put my bosses name in the "To" box, everyone else is in the BCC)

If its work stuff, or jokes, I think its okay.

 

[Salome]

hmm, as long as this email isn't a response of someone else's email I don't see a problem with it

it might not be 100% ethical
but it doesn't matter that much if they chose to do it this way or that they let you know (which they will anyway I'd say) in another way

when the email is response that it's a breach of confidence with the person who sent the original email

 

[AcrobatMan]

My emails usually start "To All Safety Personnel" or "To All Building Wardens" so they know they arent the only ones receiving it. (I only put my bosses name in the "To" box, everyone else is in the BCC)

yes this is 100% okay if you tell the receipient which all people are getting the same email

If its work stuff, or jokes, I think its okay.

why ? the receiver of the email doesnot know who else has got the same email/joke and he might end up sending the same joke..or telling the same joke to someone who already was on the BCC list

my viewpoint is each receiver would prefer to know who else has got the same email.

if its different groups of friend, i think its better to send that email many times to different bunch of friends..

i would never send a BCC ..that is for sure because i dont like receiving one .

 

[AcrobatMan]

when the email is response that it's a breach of confidence with the person who sent the original email

CC or BCC replies to earlier personal conversations with someone to a another bunch of friends without asking the original participants of the conversation is very very very bad..

 

[Angela Harlem]

I dont like them. I've never used it. Proptecting ID is about the only benefit I reckon it has. I liken it to gossiping. And can never be bothered to do so on an email.

I'd rather bitch in person

 

[nbcrusader]

the bcc: is a tool that should be used sparingly. There are times when you want to make someone aware of a situation without telling everyone that you are.

I live and breath email - but have only used bcc's twice in the last year or so.

 

[beli]

Acrobatman, The Safety Personnel dont know specifically who else is getting the email but they could ask me if they really wanted to know. Its quite common practice at my work place. We also have All Staff emails that go out to all 4,500 staff and All Events emails that go to some of the staff, blah blah. Lots of different groups. I work at a University where information is the name of the game and most people dont mind if they should receive the same email twice. Better that than not at all. ie its a heavy email culture.

If your friends and work colleagues arent so glued to the computer it may be different.

I agree if the email is more of a conversation then its impolite to BCC.

But my emails about some new chemical hazard get sent to one set of people who usually send them on. I know the 5 libraries distribute my safety emails around their staff as well. (for whatever reason ) But thats kewl. Its information distribution. Most of my emails arent actually 'talking' to people, more dispersing information.

Jokes go around campus the same way. If receive the joke twice because people didnt know who received the original, then I just delete one of them. Like I said though a University is a high email traffic work area. Were all used to it and know where the delete button is.

The only time I have had complaints is when people DONT receive my spam eerrrr safety announcements at all.

 

[Liesje]

Hmmm, good question! I work for an infor/tech department so obviously e-mail is our middle name. We troubleshoot e-mail, instruct people how to use the program, and do about 1/3 of our communication with e-mail. I don't recall ever using BCC at work or knowing that anyone else had. To e-mail tons of people, we have address groups and listservs. For example, we can send e-mails to the entire student body of our college, or all faculty and staff, or just the people in our department without needing everyone's address.

 

[arw]

I was laid off at my last job. About 20-25 of us were told in January but our last date was March 31. They pretty much told us that as long as we showed up every day and did our work business as usual they were not going to get rid of anyone early because we got a very nice severance package that we'd only get if we stayed until March 31. It was a tense situation and no one wanted to do the job. We all just wanted them to let us loose earlier than March 31. There was a lot of unethical things going on like way too much internet use (most people were looking for new jobs.) and extra long breaks but none of the managers said anything.

One guy emailed the VP of our company some concerns which turned into a fight over email. She was fine with his attitude because she knew it was a frustrating situation. Well he BCC'd a ton of us on the emails. One of the people who receieved a copy then FORWARDED the email to a manager and basically ratted this person out because she felt it was unethical that he shared this with everyone. Even though he was technically fired from the lay off he was let go less than A WEEK before our final date and he lost every single bit of his severance money and health insurance. So I guess I don't like the BCC option because you never know what's going to happen with your email.

 

[pub crawler]

Of course you wouldn't use bcc in connection with an e-mail conversation between a few people but I don't mind when people use it for a mass e-mailing (usually a business matter) because by doing that the sender precludes anyone from writing some goofy response and then hitting "reply to all."

We've gotten a few laughs due to some of the accidental "reply all's" at work.

 

[beli]

Ditto to the "reply alls" bloopers. We had one woman go off about someone throwing her lunch away and washing up her tupperware. We dont even work in her building! That was good for a laugh. I dont think shes ever going to live that one down.