Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Blind Carbon Copy

In the context of e-mail, blind carbon copy (abbreviated BCC and sometimes referred to as Blind Courtesy Copy) refers to the practice of sending a message to multiple recipients in such a way that what they receive does not contain the complete list of recipients.
It was also used, though rarely and with more difficulty in preparation, in typewritten correspondence by ensuring BCC and the names did not appear on the top copy (the original); the most discreet (though troublesome) method was to roll the copies through the typewriter again without the top copy, and type the BCC information onto the otherwise-completed copies. An alternate way is to switch the ribbon setting to strike the paper without raising the ribbon over the area being struck; this, however, leaves impressions in the surface of the paper.
To specify the recipients, an e-mail message can contain addresses in any of the 3 following fields:
To: field recipients are the audience of the message
CC: field recipients are others whom the author wishes to publicly inform of the message (carbon copy)
BCC: field recipients are those being discreetly or surreptitiously informed of the communication and cannot be seen by any of the other addressees.
It is common practice to use the BCC: field when addressing a very long list of recipients, or a list of recipients that should not (necessarily) know each other, e.g. in mailing lists.