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Elementary School Dads

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TOPIC: 7 Year old and the BCC

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Daddy Troy

7 Year old and the BCC 1 Year, 9 Months ago
Peering over my shoulder, my son asked me what the BCC was for in an email. I found it hard to explain in way that did not go against all that I had taught him about not keeping secrets, be upfront with people, etc... Its a joy of parenting to have a simple thing bring into focus larger ethical or philosophical issues.

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concretin_nik

Re:7 Year old and the BCC
1 Year, 9 Months ago

There are 'legit' reasons for using BCC... you want to send a message to ALL of YOUR friends, but they may not want their email broadcast to ALL of those same people, because they may not know them...

I use BCC often at work, to send my supervisors copies of messages I'm replying to customers, so as to keep them in the loop of work that is coming soon, but the client doesn't need to know who/when I'm telling them. It saves me from having to 'repeat' the information in another email or another format (phone call/memo)...

It's not necessarily nefarious "hiding" or malintent "secrets."

So what did you tell him?

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Daddy Troy

Re:7 Year old and the BCC
1 Year, 9 Months ago

Nik,

You are right, and I probably made a bigger deal out of it, but it sure was funny at the time to have a seven year old ask about bcc and have his father stumble over it.

Here is the 7 year old response, just for fun.

Dad, why don't all the people want others to know their email addresses?

Answer, because there are some people who will misuse the email address. Back to having explain it in terms of bad guys vs good guys.

The client does not need to know will also sound to him like keeping secrets. I think.

Even without malintent, its a secret and it is harder than I expected to explain.

Thanks for giving me some language.

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