Exercise Caution When Emailing Groups Of People
This is for readers, authors — anyone who sends or receives mass emails.
It's about your right to privacy, your right to have your data protected.
I recently decided to do more promo and get my blog more active, and signed on with a company doing blog tours.
Now, that's all very well.
However, I've sat there, watching emails coming in to my main email address…and I got irked. I got irked some more when it happened again. And again. And again.
What am I talking about?
People who mass email everyone on their list without taking ANY care with their data. i.e. the email address.
These people simply stuck everyone into the "To" field (Some 50 or more people) and thus revealed everyone's email address to everyone on the email.
Not only is this highly unprofessional, negligent and dangerous — it also happens to violate the European Data Protection Act, since I'm in the UK. I did not give permission to share my email address with strangers, and therefore the company BROKE THE LAW.
(And let me tell you, the European courts don't take that lightly.)
You might not care about who has your email address, but you should. Especially if you use it to log in to some places that may be sensitive.
How happy would you be if an email landed in your inbox, with the following: "Oh, btw, we've sent this email to 50 people. Here are their email addresses *insert long list of names and addresses*. And we've sent those 50 strangers your email address as well."
You'd be livid, I expect.
That's in essence what they've done. Not only that, if only one person on that list fails to protect their inbox, or downloads a spambot which seeks out email addresses in your mail and contacts…you can say goodbye to that email address.
So here is my warning:
If you send out newsletters, or any other form of mass email — make sure you don't reveal your subscribers email addresses. Instead of "To", use "BCC" or use a service like MailChimp.
If you receive newsletters, and you find the sender reveals your email address, then email them and tell them off for it.
None of us like spam, so fight back when you get an email where you can see the email addresses of other people — because if you can see theirs, then they can see yours.
