GeminiGeek’s Online Journal

Protect yourself; Tips on Forwarding Emails.

September 29th, 2007 in Writings

Forwarding emails become a norm to most people nowadays. I received like 5 to 6 forwarded emails every week. All types of emails are forwarded, from informative mails to junk chain mails. And to tell you the truth, I kinda hate forwarded emails too. I don’t read them unless the subject grabs my attention.

Now here’s the deal. Email forwarding actually helps spammer to get your email without even paying for it. And for your information, people can actually sell lists of emails for money. That’s why you will notice that most websites that requires you to register and provide your email address have a privacy policy, stating that they will not sell your email address to any third party. While most of us don’t really read this kind of small wording policies and crap, but I think we should know this kind of thing, and why do they state their policy.

People usually enter their friends’ email address when forwarding emails in the ‘To’ field. When you’re forwarding emails, you know that you’re not forwarding to one friend only, but usually ALL (if not, MOST) the people in your contacts. And what happens here is that all the email addresses to the one you’re forwarding to will appear in the forwarded emails.

That is an example of a forwarded email that has been circulating in the internet for ages. Look at all the email addresses that appears in it. If this email happens to be forwarded to someone who wants to take advantage of selling email addresses, he will get shit load of money. And imagine if spammer got all those emails. Hey, this could be one of the reasons why many of us get spam mails every day. You know you didn’t subscribe to anything, and yet you get all those junk mail on enlargement pills and what not.

Most people didn’t know that they can actually hide their friends’ email address when forwarding email. If you hide your those email addresses, you’re helping them. Nobody wants their email address to be exposed to strangers.

I once got an email in Hotmail. I used that email as my MSN Messenger passport. And that email is one victim of forwarded emails. I got like so many forwarded emails per day, and those people who forwarded the email put all his friends’ email addresses in the “To” field. And guess what? Some stranger add me in her MSN Messenger. When I asked how she got my email address, she said she randomly add people that is in a forwarded email. Dang, I felt like being stalked. But at least now such thing didn’t happen anymore. Random people who adds me in MSN is either my blog’s reader or people wanting support on my Wordpress Theme.

How can I protect my friends and myself?

Here are a few tips that you can apply to prevent this from happening. If not prevent, at least it helps to protect your friends’ privacy.

1. Use the “BCC” field

The “BCC” field in your compose email interface simply means “Blind Carbon Copy”. Like its name suggested, any email addresses in this field will receive a copy, but all the recipients email is “blind”, or simply means hidden from others who receives the same messages. It is a good idea to forward all your emails using the BCC field.

If you’re using Gmail, you can just put all email addresses in “BCC” field with empty “To”. So, it’s easy if you’re using Gmail. However, Yahoo Mail doesn’t allow empty “To” field, but there’s a workaround to it (read further down). On other email clients and services, I am not too sure how they work, but I do hope you can share them by leaving a comment here

2. Group your contacts

Most email services have a proper contact manager. You group your contacts into proper groups like friends and family, business contacts, clients, etc. If you group them properly, just enter a group name in the “To” and everyone in the group will receive the email. And the good news is all the email address within a group isn’t shown, it will only show the group name.

Now what happens if you don’t want to send the email to a member of a group? Here’s what you can do. Create a group named “Undisclosed Recipients” and add your own email in it, or you can add email addresses that you WILL always forward to. Every time you want to be picky when forwarding email, just put “Undisclosed Recipients” in the “To” field and you can pick all your friends email one by one and have them in the “BCC” field. That way, you’re hiding everyone’s email.

3. Don’t Believe in any Chain Mails

Yes. All of them is fake, it’s just the matter of whether you’re believing it or not. There are a few types of chain mails that I’ve received and I know its fake. Here it is:

1. Forward to n number of people and your crush will call you. Or, forward to n number of people or you will have misfortune. Now seriously, how true is this?
2. Forward to n number of people and Bill Gates (or some other rich prick) will wire money to you to your account. The hell? Bill Gates is busy promoting his Microsoft, and you think he will bother to wire his money to you? Even if he has the time, now think, how the hell can he get your address or banking account number by just looking at email addresses? Clearly it’s fake, and clearly its the work of a spammer trying to get as many emails as possible.
3. Forward to n number of people and a cute cat will appear in your screen. I tried, nothing happens. And it will not happen. I can guarantee 100% that it will never happen. Don’t ask me why, it’s just freaking impossible. Trust me, it’s just a myth.

4. Remove all Email Addresses in the Forwarded mails

It’s a good practice to do so. Now that you know how to hide email addresses from appearing, so it’s a good idea to delete all the addresses that stays intact in the forwarded messages. Just remove all of it before you forward to your friends. This way, you can protect other people’s emails in the future message circulation.

So, do you have any other tips on protecting the privacy of your friends?

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