Lewis' Blog Tales from the trenches of information technology

Why must people carbon copy (cc) all the time?

Ugh.

If someone gives me his private office phone number, he doesn't expect me to write it in the office Christmas card.

If someone gives me his cell number, he doesn't expect that I'll scribble it on a bathroom wall at a highway rest stop.

So, if I give someone my email address, why is it that so many recipients treat it like it's public information?

When I get someone's email address, I treat it the same way I would that person's home phone number, private office line, or cell phone. I don't give it out unless I get permission from the owner of the information. Again, this evening, I received a "joke" from a client, with my email address blazoned across the To: header, along with...let me count them...a dozen others (people I don't know).

Beyond the rudeness of sharing my address with strangers, I'm willing to bet that at least half of them are running Windows systems, with easily harvested address books and out-of-date antivirus/antispyware, so that my address is now even more likely to be snatched by some 'bot and used for nefarious purposes.

A couple weeks ago, I got a message from a large company who shall remain nameless, with my address as a cc along with 374 - I'm not kidding - that's three hundred seventy-four other addresses cc'd in the headers. On my Palm Pre, I had to scroll and scroll and scroll just to get through them all. Huh????

Next time, maybe I'll just give out my Social Security number, debit card PIN, and plaster a picture of my kids, their names, and ages on some social networking site...

Last Updated on September 30th, 2010 by LewisR