E-mailing Visible Addresses

Is is O.K. to e-mail an e-mail address visible on a Web site? That depends.

If you are e-mailing questions in regard to the Web site’s topic, service or product, that is fine – that is why the e-mail address is there. However, if you are sending them e-mail about something you can commercially gain from that they did not specifically ask you to send them, then no. That is considered Spam.

Same goes for that long list of e-mail addresses you see in the To: field from an Irresponsible Forwarder. Because the Sender was inconsiderate of their contact’s privacy or not tech savvy enough to know to use the BCc: field, does not mean you have the right to e-mail all those folks. You don’t hit Reply to All. You don’t add them to your business mailing list of announcements they didn’t ask for.

If they are strangers; only reply to the Sender if you have something to say. To which you may want to mention their lack of courtesy in exposing all their contact’s addresses to folks they don’t know. Shame on them!

Always take the time to edit out any visible e-mail addresses if you feel the need to forward the very same e-mail to your friends. Whenever you see that there is a list of e-mail addresses of folks you don’t know whether in the To: field or body of the message, the onus is then on you to do the right thing and delete all those addresses before exposing them further.

Putting an arm’s length list of your contacts in the To: field making those addresses visible to folks they don’t know, will increase their spam. Do us all a favor, learn to use the BCc: and have respect for other’s contact information by protecting it as if it were yours and using it appropriately.

You may also be interested in:

• When Not to Add to Your Mailing List
• Respecting Business E-mail Addresses
• Expectations of Being Cc:’d
• Take the Time to Down-edit Instead of Top Posting
• The Subject: Field is for the Subject!