There are times when you want to send an email to someone, or to a group of people, but you do not want some of the recipients to see the others' email addresses. This could be because you do not want the target of the email to know that you are including someone (e.g. a supervisor) in on the conversation, and this is why "BCC" ("blind courtesy copy" a.k.a. BC - "blind copy") was invented.
Originally BCC was used on the bottom of typewritten letters copied to work supervisors specifically to let the supervisor know they were "secretly" getting a copy of an employee evaluation or reprimand. BCC has been incorporated into mail programs from the very beginning for this very reason.
An initially unintended use has recently caused BCC to grow in popularity, and this is for mass mailings. Many "spam blockers" will automatically discard a message (or file it in "junk") that is sent to a large group of recipients assuming it is just junk mail. In addition, if sending legitimate information to a wide group of people, most of the time you do not want to be the person responsible for allowing one member of the group to suddenly get another member's email address.
In Groupwise, every time you create a message you will see a "BC:" box for addresses in addition to the "TO:" and "CC:" boxes. Put YOUR OWN name or email address into the "TO:" box. Then put the recipients names or email addresses (or address group if you've made one) into the "BC:" box. Now everyone will get a copy of the message containing only two email addresses; yours and theirs.
Originally BCC was used on the bottom of typewritten letters copied to work supervisors specifically to let the supervisor know they were "secretly" getting a copy of an employee evaluation or reprimand. BCC has been incorporated into mail programs from the very beginning for this very reason.
An initially unintended use has recently caused BCC to grow in popularity, and this is for mass mailings. Many "spam blockers" will automatically discard a message (or file it in "junk") that is sent to a large group of recipients assuming it is just junk mail. In addition, if sending legitimate information to a wide group of people, most of the time you do not want to be the person responsible for allowing one member of the group to suddenly get another member's email address.
In Groupwise, every time you create a message you will see a "BC:" box for addresses in addition to the "TO:" and "CC:" boxes. Put YOUR OWN name or email address into the "TO:" box. Then put the recipients names or email addresses (or address group if you've made one) into the "BC:" box. Now everyone will get a copy of the message containing only two email addresses; yours and theirs.