Check Before You Send

Sending out mass emails without using the BCC feature is a quick way to lose friends online. I learned the hard way myself when a friend emailed me something that I replied to and everyone she had sent the email to received my reply. Or something like that, it was a few years ago and I don't quite remember the details, except that I had two people I know fighting with each other via email. It was an ugly situation. I was relatively new online and really had no clue.

That situation taught me to always use BCC when I was sending out the same email to more than one person. Or to use a list service. Or anything but sending an email straight out by only using the to line or plain CC.

Susan Estrich never learned that lesson, and I bet a lot of people are ticked off about now.

Seriously, you'd think a lawyer would know better.

I discovered the faux pas through an email list that I'm on linking to the Gawker post that exposes all the addresses that Estrich sent her job news to.

In the digital world, news travels fast - especially if that news contains the addresses of several prominent people. The original email was sent Wednesday afternoon and by Thursday the addresses were public knowledge, not only to the people who were recipients of the original email, but now to thousands of people through the blog and the thousands more who are sharing the story through email lists and forums.

Can you imagine how many of these people are going to be ticked off?

Remember to double check your To line when you send out your next mass email.