how to send and limit BCC EMAILS

How to send and limit Bcc emails in 2021?

“Cc” means “Carbon Copy” in the (old) sense of making a copy
on a typewriter using carbon paper.

The “Bcc:” field in emails (where the “Bcc” means “Blind Carbon Copy”)
contains addresses of recipients of the message
whose addresses are not to be revealed to other recipients of the message.

    • IETF rfc 2822 “Internet Message Format”

The difference between Bcc and Cc lies in the privacy of the recipient.
Using the Cc feature, the email addresses in the Cc field
are visible to all the recipients of the email.

A Bcc recipient can see the direct recipient (To:),
he won’t be able to tell who else was Bcc’d in the email.

Bcc is often seen as an easy-to-use mass email distribution system.
Below is a brief analysis of the pros and cons of using Bcc.
At the end of the page, the conclusions with some suggestions.

PROS

It’s easy: anyone can use it.

  • it’s an easy way to contact multiple email recipients
  • anyone with an email client can utilize it
  • when used correctly, it respects the recipients’ privacy by not disclosing their email IDs

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CONS

Email is an outgoing gateway without prior checking.
Bcc increases its reach to hundreds or thousands of contacts.

Bcc should be considered a high risk,
potentially dangerous communication tool.

  • it’s an error-prone process, the risks are:
  • mistakenly add Bcc recipients in the Cc field
    this usually causes severe brand damage
    a new apology message is the most common way out of this situation
    » the names of all the recipients are made public
    » unintended (and sometimes intentional) use of “reply to all”
       which generates uncontrolled email chains
    » someone might raise a privacy incident from a GDPR perspective
       if the subject/body contains “special categories” of personal data, thus identifying
       the people that belong to the same category (i.e. illness, orientation or beliefs)
  • mistakenly add someone as the main (visible) recipient
  • forget to add someone or add someone that should not receive the message

  • there is a high probability of being classified as spam
  • the problem is, most spammers send using Bcc
    the destination mailservers are cautious in accepting Bcc messages
  • if I send you a message using Bcc,
    you receive an email that is not addressed to you
    that’s a mark against the message when it comes to evaluating spam
  • the same message will be sent to “several” email addresses
    belonging to the same domain all at once, it’s easy to count them and block it

  • there is no control over wrong addresses
  • there may be double/triple email addresses in the same recipient
    this affects the sending to that recipient, even if one or more addresses are correct
  • syntactically incorrect addresses are accepted without warning
    for example, if the @ symbol is missing or there are spaces

  • no personalization / low impact / little or no reactions
  • the message will necessarily be standard and “anonymous”
    no individual communication is possible, no Dear Mr./Mrs. …
  • your Bcc’d recipients will receive a message directed to someone else
    they are unlikely to pay attention or react to it

  • it is very likely that there will be technical problems
  • any abuse actions by spammers or hackers may quickly impact many recipients
    compromising the reputation of the smtp server (i.e. server blacklisting)
  • sender mailbox could be overrun by bounces (user unknown, mailbox full, …)
    their number can vary between 5% and 20% of the emails that have been sent
  • the sending may have a bad impact on email delivery systems (smtp servers), i.e.:
    many “try again later” replies, large number of messages the mail-queue, system crash

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CONCLUSIONS

  1. Set the Limits
  • check the number of recipients allowed by your email provider
    try it yourself, to be 100% sure

    RealSender.com shares a list of 300 @spam-box.com addresses for testing,
    the messages will reach a “black-hole” mailserver

  • limit the number of recipients in a single message to a small number, such as 20,
    allowing more recipients, permits to easily send messages
    to thousands of email addresses, just dividing them into small groups
  1. Go Professional
  • allow massive emails through different channels only

  • use a different From address when sending many messages
    for example another subdomain, as @news.companyname.com
    only authorized persons will have access to it
    and they will handle it more carefully

  • within structured offices, with many people working with email,
    use dedicated apps to send mass mailings
    the professional systems have an approval workflow
    and step by step control, they are designed to avoid mistakes

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