Email Best Practice #4
To avoid spam, ideally users must drop themselves off the mailing lists of any friend or colleague who indulges in forwarding emails to dozens of people collected together in ‘To’ lists. Every time your address is passed around, it opens the door to spammers.
Typical forwarded emails contain pictures, jokes, or e-mails received from others, this is particularly the case between co-workers – the latter risks the whole company e-mail address book getting into the hands of spammers: a fate suffered by many university departments.
You really shouldn’t feel guilty about not forwarding on e-mails, and it is good practice to delete all but critical messages anyway.
However, even though you don’t actively participate in these round-robins, the mere appearance of your address in a list can invite trouble.
Should you need to email a large group of people, then you should use the BCC feature wherever possible, as this prevents spammers getting access to your network of contacts.
It’s also important to delete any propagating list of contacts and email addresses that appear within the body of a received email prior to forwarding it on.
PS: Official emails may be the odd exception in some scenarios, but treat every forwarding decision with care.
Related posts:
using bcc is considered impolite in most organizational settings.
Hence, we have concluded with the statement “Official emails may be the odd exception in some scenarios”. However, wherever possible, users should exercise this best practice.
I’d say nearly anytime you have a hierarchy of power, transparency of the email list (re: organizations) becomes more important.