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There are times in life when you decide “enough is enough“. This past week was one of those times.

I get a fair amount of email. Not as much as some, but it’s a pretty steady stream. Sometimes, those messages are from well-wishing friends who thought I might enjoy an inspirational message from an unknown source. Messages like these are almost always sent to a whole pantload of people. And all of our email addresses are nicely collected in the ‘To’ field, where every recipient now has access to my email address.

This is, frankly, infuriating. So much so that I decided to take some (arguably passive) action. I created a website where I can send people who do this.

Humbly, I give you bccplease.com. The idea is pretty self-explanatory, when you send an email to a million people, put their email addresses in the ‘BCC’ field instead of the ‘To’ field.

I hope you can all find some use for it, feel free to direct any email abusers you encounter on over for some tough love.

Enjoy!


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May 18, 2008 | Filed Under Email, Hacking Life, Practical 

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comments

  • Looks good, I like it. I will probably send someone to it at some point because I get a lot of useless forwards from the uneducated.

    However, I also have some concerns about the use of BCC in general that I always think of whenever someone advocates for its use. BCC can also be used to cover-up names and email addresses that the others on the message *should* be aware of.

    In a similar fashion, it is sometimes used to copy someone on a message without letting the recipient(s) know this has been done. IMO this is not usually honest, and even if it is, it is dangerous because then you risk being found out.

    But for forwards and random newsletters, yes, BCC is the way to go. :)
  • Well put, thank you.
    Though the volume of total crap emails in my life has diminished significantly, there are still emails which come to me with lists of strangers. I can't help but think that some of these people would prefer their info not be broadcast all over hell and creation.

    This is a good addition to the slowly growing series of "polite reminder" sites.
  • This is the kind of link that should be included in all serious email user's signatures!
  • Yes!! Well done indeed.

    It's amazing how many people are oblivious to this simple task. I have had to take this issue up with several companies who send out newsletters or promotional materials and expose hundreds of email addresses.

    Definitely placing the link in my signature for a while.
  • Greg
    The main reason I encourage F&F to use BCC is this:

    It only takes one well-intentioned FoaF to forward an e-mail with EVERYBODY'S e-mail all exposed, and sooner or later those names end up 4 sale on some Spam network. IOW, you've helped to confirm to Spambot scrapers out there that this is fresh meat - likely to be real/actual/live addresses. This is far preferable to raw dictionary attacks, so just a few bogus or compromised e-mail relays out there will gobble up stuff like this for "fun and profit" (mostly "profit").

    Anyway - my $.02. If your page had some info on the "why" of "why not to do this" other than just netiquette, I'd link to it. :-)
  • 'Chelle
    Gee, I never thought of that. See, when I set up my address book, I indicated for each name and address that it should display as "Mike", or "Winky" or "Fishdancer" or "JanE". That way, when I click on the people I want to send anything to, only those designated "names" show in the "TO:" space, no addresses or other idendifiers. Hey, it works for us. It ought to work for preset distro lists as well.
  • Mike
    bccplease.com doesn't seem to be working
  • Michael
    Thanks! Used the URL as footer in my emails since 2008. Now it seems to be expired, any suggestions?
  • Michael
    Thanks for putting it on again!
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