Mass e-mails are a type of spam that comes in the disguise of chain letters, charity appeals and lucky proverbs, to name a few. These are also known as group or chain e-mails. They usually have so many addresses on them that you have to scroll down to see the message. The message will often encourage you to forward the e-mail to a specific and high number of people, sometimes promising to make donations to a charity each time the message is sent or threatening you with bad luck if it is not.
This is an ideal way for spammers to get addresses as the e-mail starts to multiply over and over. Remember, if the e-mail has an attachment and you forward it to your friends, you could be infecting their computer with a virus if they open it.
You will notice an input box near the ‘to’ field when composing an e-mail, called ‘Bcc’. This stands for ‘Blind Carbon Copy’. When you enter more than one address into the ‘to’ field, you are creating a group e-mail. If you are sending a group e-mail, you should only put one addressee in the ‘to’ field and put the rest of the addresses in the ‘Bcc’ section to keep them hidden from spammers.
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