The Importance of Protecting Your Email List
I’ve written about it often in newsletters and in blogs and I’ve emailed everyone who includes me on a list using To: and CC: and advise them of the proper way to send broadcast emails. I’m astounded at how many business people just do not seem to know or understand this simple way of protecting their lists.
My series on Email Etiquette has been republished in many articles and publications online and in printed publications also. They are also amongst some of the most viewed articles at Evan Carmichael’s Motivation and Strategies for Entrepreneurs. Pity the staff at Ticketek didn’t read them.
Last week my husband received an email from Ticketek with a long list of email addresses in the To: field. What a blunder and a public blunder at that. We were astounded at the time that they would do that and he emailed them advising he was unsubscribing from their list.
In The Age today there is an article about a Spam Alert after Ticketek email blunder. They’ve highlighted how it is a privacy breach but I have other concerns about what this could do.
If any of the recipients have a virus or Trojan on their computers the rest of the recipients are at risk if they don’t have up-to-date antivirus programs active on their computers. But more to the point, their email addresses have just been given away to any of those people on that list keen to build their own lists. What a giveaway!
Let this be a lesson to all who broadcast emails to lists of people. DO NOT USE the To: or CC: fields if you are sending email to a list of people. It should not be done. Get into the habit of using BCC which protects and hides the email addresses of everyone on your list. Each individual will only see their address and no-one else’s when this is done properly.
I wish you would post more often…this is my “coffee drinking” blog:) Edgar Allen
Kathie,
It is hard to fathom that there are more people online trying new things every day than we could ever know. The need for training them is huge, so that they don’t embarrass themselves and make costly mistakes.
I clearly remember my first steps into LinkedIn forums, yahoo groups, and more over the years. It is scary. There is always someone to “yell” at you, and then you just run away!
How wonderful to have people like you, who will calmly and professionally give the information to a new and naive person.
Cheers to you!
Sally
http://www.stopsmokingwithdrsally.com
Good info Kathie. Thanks