Do you have an aunt, uncle, mother, father, or in-law who sends you every pre-enjoyed email forward that comes across their inbox? Do they pass it along with an infinite string of email headers and gobbledygook, so that finding the meat of the message is almost surely not worth the effort? In doing so, they are committing some major no-no’s in the book of email etiquette. If you know someone like this, then this blog post should be required reading for those individuals; and may want to politely send this to them.

If you have ever felt the irresistible need to pass along a bad joke, virus warning, fervent prayer, or good luck charm, then this tutorial is for you. I am sorry to disappoint you my good friend, but you’ll NEVER receive ANYTHING in the mail or otherwise, by forwarding an email to 10 friends. You certainly won’t have good luck, and in fact, you may tick a few people off.

Let’s consider that the most recent statistics from Symantec reveal that at least 90% of all email traffic is SPAM. So we all need to show some restraint in clicking the forward button since junk mail is only increasing – without the help of trigger-happy “forwarders.”

If you resist passing along that dire virus warning, but still feel the need to forward that cute video of the baby moose running through a water sprinkler, then it would be prudent to understand some etiquette.

First rule: do not send anything to your entire address book of 150 people, but instead consider who would enjoy the cute baby moose, and only add those people to the list of recipients. (As much as you want someone to like what you are sending, really consider who is interested in the subject matter, and only send to those people.)

Next, do not add any recipients to the “TO:” or “CC:” fields – this is critical. Instead add all recipients inside the “BCC:” field. Known as blind carbon copy, this keeps all recipients email addresses hidden and confidential as the email gets passed around cyberspace. Spammers use forwarded emails to garner email addresses by the handful, much to the dismay of those people who were just exposed by careless “forwarders.”

If you are forwarding an email that came to you with a long list of headers at the top, then all of this needs to be deleted AFTER you click the Forward button and a new message opens. If you are using a program such as Outlook or Outlook Express, you may have had to click a dozen envelope icons just to reach the original message. If you decide to forward this message yet again, be sure to forward the last envelope that you opened and NOT the original message. If you forward the original message you will add yet another envelope to the convoluted mess.

So let’s recap the 3 simple rules if you do forward an email:
#1) Do not forward to “All Contacts” – select each person who might truly be interested in it.

#2) Add those selected recipients to the confidential BCC: field, not the TO: or CC: fields.

#3) Delete any previous email headers at the top (and bottom) of the message and be sure to forward only the original message if you had to drill down to get to it.

If you follow these three simple rules to good etiquette when forwarding, you will be doing a great service to the cyberspace community… and you may even end up with some good luck in the process.

If you want to politely, and anonymously ask someone to stop sending you junk email, here is a great website to help you do so.  http://stopforwarding.com/