The BCC feature is an alternative to the carbon copy (CC) feature. Both enable you to send a single email to multiple recipients at once. The only difference between the two is that with CC the list of email addresses is not hidden, so that each person can see all of the addresses listed in the CC field. Alternatively, BCC supresses your recipient list. Upon receipt, recipients of a BCCed email will see something like: (Recipient list suppressed) in the email headers.

There are many times to use BCC. For example, if you would like to send a request for a quote to a number of vendors, but you but don't want the vendors to be able to see each other's addresses, you could place the list of addresses in the BCC field. This will supress the recipients list, protecting the privacy of the people you are emailing.

The effect of not using BCC when distributing an email to multiple recipients can have a significant, damaging effect on your business. In one actual case, a software company encountered significant, negative results when an employee accidentally placed over 2,000 email addresses in the CC field instead of in the BCC field when distributing the company's newsletter. Customers were outraged at this violation of privacy, a carefully developed list of prospects immediately turned into a group of outraged netizens, and the company ended up giving away copies of their US$600+ program to numerous people that complained.

If you have employees, be sure to create an email policy that highlights the BCC function. Your employees should not be allowed to send email until they understand and agree to use BCC exclusively for bulk email distribution.

BCC: remember this function the next time you send an email to a group of people at once.