I created this page as a last resort due to the endless times my computers (my livelihood) became damaged by virus attacks and my email accounts infested with offensive spam.  I'm sure you must also resent spending endless hours and expense fixing such damage, especially if you take all the necessary precautions to protect your computers against possible threats by:

• using a reputable anti-virus;
• avoid opening unexpected and/or unnecessary email attachments;
• never post your email address on non-secure websites;
• refuse to participate with chain emails;
• always Bcc (explained below) when sending emails to more than one recipient. 

If you are this vigilant but continue to be infested with spam and virus attacks,  the most likely cause is due to people (people you trusted with your email address) circulating your private email address in chain emails in the 'To' or 'Cc' PUBLIC address fields for all recipients (and the potential world and his wife)  to see.

Unless we understand  the risks of emailing and how to avoid them, we are putting our recipients' computers, their privacy and personal safety at risk. If you respect their privacy and safety, read on to understand how to avoid the risks.  

FORWARD  EMAILS

Every time you forward a "Forward" email there is information left over from the previous recipient/s who sent it to you, namely their names and email addresses. As the messages get forwarded along, the list of addresses builds and builds. If one individual forwards a chain email to everyone in his/her address book, and each of those recipients continue to forward it on, before you know it your PRIVATE email address will have been circulated to thousands of perfect strangers around the world. 

Imagine the outrage if we did the same with each other's private postal addresses when sending Christmas cards!

All it takes is for one computer to be hit by a virus and it can spread to every email address/computer  it comes across. Or, someone can collect all those addresses broadcast in the To or Cc field and send junk mail to them or sell them to professional spammers.    

Quite apart from the dangers such email misuse cause is the rate at which they multiply and occupy precious bandwidth, which is unacceptable as it leads to latency on the entire network. 

All this damage because someone broadcast your private email address for the sake of circulating totally unnecessary round-robins, often the sort of rubbish that have been doing the internet rounds for years.  If it isn't another glurgy, sickly-sweet supposedly 'inspirational', it's the virus alert that you can bet is going to be yet another hoax. Incidentally, whenever you receive any type of round-robin email warnings, if you must waste your time reading them, always check out their validity at snopes.com or hoax-slayer.com before even thinking of taking them seriously.  

SAFE EMAILING - WHAT TO DO

1. When sending an email to more than one recipient, never  use the To: or  Cc: fields otherwise all recipients will see/receive each other's private email address. Circulating email addresses like this not merely places us at greater risk of virus attacks and spammers,  but is also a wonderful source for stalkers. 

To protect the privacy of your recipients’ email addresses list them in the Bcc: (Blind Carbon Copy) field. This works just like the Cc: (Carbon Copy) field except that recipients only see their own email address and no one else's.

If you don't see the Bcc option, click on 'To:' and your address list will appear.  Highlight the addresses and choose Bcc.

When you send using Bcc: your message will automatically say "undisclosed recipients" in the To: field of the people who receive it, providing security and privacy to all the people in your address book. 

See also  Instructions for using Bcc for Outlook Express, AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail etc.

2. If you really must forward an important email, first delete all the addresses that appear in the body of the message. To do this simply click the "Forward" button to enable full editing capabilities for the body and headers of the message.  Remove any "FW:" in the subject line and re-name the subject if you wish. Above all, remember to select Bcc if you're forwarding it to more than one recipient. 
 

3. EMAIL PETITIONS – a simple rule - avoid them like the plague. They state a position, ask you to add your name and address and forward it to people in your address book. They get forwarded on and on and collect thousands of names and email addresses causing potential mass spamming and virus attacks!

The completed petition is worth money to  professional spammers because of the wealth of valid names and email addresses contained therein!

If you wish to  support a cause by the click of a button there are hundreds of reputable petition sites on the web, such  as THIS.

4. Considering how harmful chain emails can be,  don't start unnecessary ones yourself, the type that are tempting for recipients to forward on.  Even if you start one  in the safe Bcc mode, you can practically guarantee that at least one of your recipients, who decides to forward it to everyone in their entire address book, won't have a clue about Bcc, let alone think of using it. So, when they forward your 'inspirational' or 'funny', broadcasting all their recipients' private email addresses to each other, it will most certainly include the original sender's address, i.e. YOURS! 

The above has highlighted the damage to our computers and email accounts by failing to use Bcc when sending/forwarding round-robins. 

I hope THIS STORY (true or otherwise is irrelevant - the scenario is quite possible)  will raise your awareness of another risk to our personal safety when friends publish our private email addresses to total strangers. In this particular case the woman was stalked by someone who received her e-mail address from a forwarded round-robin.   
 

So, PLEASE respect each other's privacy and safety by following the Bcc rule.  

SPREAD THE WORD SAFELY

I personally embed the following message into my emails. I embed it by default rather than target individual culprits to spare them the embarrassment of having their offence pointed out. Feel free to use the idea for your own emails,  with a link to this webpage if you wish.

~ I welcome emails, but please exclude me from any round-robins that display recipients' email addresses to each other. See my Safe Emailing which explains. Thank you. :) 

Thank you for visiting and for sharing my concerns.

~ Julia

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