email address privacy

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Guest

More and more people are requesting that we don't put their email address in
the To: or CC: fields in order to avoid getting it into the wrong hands. In
order to protect other people's email address, some users are putting all
email addresses in the BCC: with their own email address in the To: field.
This works but prevents the recipients from knowing who the target audience
is (which is important most of the time). I recommend there be a privacy
option that can be set globally in Outlook or per-message that allows someone
to hide the email addresses without hiding the names of the recipients. It
would be similar to BCC: in functionality but with the addition of the
display names in the To: field (minus the email addresses of course!).
 
I could be wrong, but I don't think that's possible within the RFC-822
standard for Internet mail transmissions.
 
I could be wrong, but I don't think that's possible within the RFC-822
standard for Internet mail transmissions.
Click to expand...

No it isn't. It violates RFC 2822 (which superceeds RFC 822). It would
also completely break the ability of people to reply to the message.
 
I think you misunderstood my request. First of all, I can simulate email
address privacy simply by using an Outlook contact and the BCC: field. If
this violates any RFC then Outlook itself is violating the RFC. Second, my
suggestion does not prevent people from replying to the message because I am
not asking for privacy for the FROM: field.

Here is how I can simulate email address privacy:

1. Create a new Contact in Outlook. In the Full Name and/or Display As:
field, enter the names (first name only, or first and last, or nick name) of
*all* the recipients separated by commas or semicolons or any other visual
separator.
2. In the Contact's Email: field, put it your own email address or a bogus
one (doesn't matter really), it's just so that Outlook doesn't complain there
is no email in the To:.
3. Create a new message and select the newly created Contact in the To: field.
4. Put in all the recipient's email addresses in the BCC: field.

When the message is sent, every recipient will receive a copy of the message
and will know who it's from. They will also see all the names you wrote in
the Contact but will not be able to see their email addresses since they are
in the BCC.

As you can see, it's quite cumbersome to create a new Contact for every
message. If there was an option called Email Address Privacy which would
automate this somehow without necessarily creating a contact each time, then
I think a lot of people would benefit, especially with all the privacy laws
coming into effect.

Carlos.
 
I think you misunderstood my request. First of all, I can simulate email
address privacy simply by using an Outlook contact and the BCC: field. If
this violates any RFC then Outlook itself is violating the RFC. Second, my
suggestion does not prevent people from replying to the message because I am
not asking for privacy for the FROM: field.

Here is how I can simulate email address privacy:

1. Create a new Contact in Outlook. In the Full Name and/or Display As:
field, enter the names (first name only, or first and last, or nick name) of
*all* the recipients separated by commas or semicolons or any other visual
separator.
2. In the Contact's Email: field, put it your own email address or a bogus
one (doesn't matter really), it's just so that Outlook doesn't complain there
is no email in the To:.
3. Create a new message and select the newly created Contact in the To: field.
4. Put in all the recipient's email addresses in the BCC: field.

When the message is sent, every recipient will receive a copy of the message
and will know who it's from. They will also see all the names you wrote in
the Contact but will not be able to see their email addresses since they are
in the BCC.

As you can see, it's quite cumbersome to create a new Contact for every
message. If there was an option called Email Address Privacy which would
automate this somehow without necessarily creating a contact each time, then
I think a lot of people would benefit, especially with all the privacy laws
coming into effect.
Click to expand...

While you may find this compelling, I think you're one of a very few that
might want to use it. Note that people can only reply to you, though from
looking at the "to" line they'll probably assume that everyone on it is
getting the reply. In terms of privacy, yeah, you're not revealing email
addresses, but you're still revealing names. Were you a therapist, for
example, that would be very bad...
 
I spoke to a bunch of people and they all said my suggestion was better than
using BCC. Most people make-do with the functionality available in Outlook
but that doesn't mean that new useful features like email address privacy
would be ignored. There are problems with BCC. For example, recipients of the
message might wonder if so and so has received a copy. Just in case, most
people will forward a copy to others even though those people probably
already received a copy. BCC is ok for certain situations but in my opinion
it is totally useless when using it for distribution lists.

An email address is a private piece of information when associated with a
person's name just like a home address or phone number. A name by itself is
not personal if it is not associated with any other personal information.

When you are in a group and start presenting people to each other you don't
say, "this is so and so and she lives at 123 Cherry Lane". You give the name
and that's it. We should be able to do this with email as well, just names no
addresses. If someone wants to know somebody's address then they must ask the
Sender who would then request permission from the person before giving out
personal information.

If this option is implemented properly in Outlook, there is no reason why
anyone would assume that doing a "reply all" would actually reach all the
recipients with private email addresses.

If you ask people about this, I'm sure they would find this feature useful.
If you don't ask anyone and just assume that I am the only one in the world
that wants this feature then you are just being closed-minded. Ask around and
you will see...
 
For example, recipients of the message might wonder if so and so has
received a copy. Just in case, most people will forward a copy to others
even though those people probably already received a copy.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I understand your scenario. If the people know each other and
might decide to forward the email to each other, why are you concerned
about the email addresses being present in the message? On the other hand,
if they *don't* know each other, why doesn't Bcc work? What is the actual
scenario in which you actually need this sort of "here are the names but
not the addresses" functionality?
If this option is implemented properly in Outlook, there is no reason why
anyone would assume that doing a "reply all" would actually reach all the
recipients with private email addresses.
Click to expand...

How would you suggest it be done so that people realize that "reply all"
really means "reply to sender"? How would you implement it on an Exchange
server (which half of Outlook's users use)? What happens when such a
message is received by someone that *isn't* using Outlook?
If you ask people about this, I'm sure they would find this feature useful.
If you don't ask anyone and just assume that I am the only one in the world
that wants this feature then you are just being closed-minded. Ask around and
you will see...
Click to expand...

Well, I've been in these newsgroups for several years, and this is the
first time I've heard this suggestion. I think you'd find that making this
work well in all situations in which Outlook must work, and for a broad
range of users, is not as easy to do as you might think. Solutions that
work for a particular scenario often do not generalize well. I'll pass
your thoughts along to the designers, though, as something to think about.
 
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