"To:" and "From:" fields have same email address

Jeh

New Email
Hi, I got an email sent to my Hotmail account the other day and I noticed that the "From:" and "To:" fields were both populated with the same email address of that of the sender. Now, from my understanding shouldn't the "From:" field have the address of the sender and the "To:" field have my address to which the email is going to? I am completely perplexed by this and am hoping someone can give me a solution to this. Thanks in advance.
 

THERESA

Customer Service
Actually it is an indication that the person respects your privacy. This person used the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) field for your email address. Normally people will do that when they want to send an email out to a large number of people and they don't want to compromise their privacy (their email addresses)


Be VERY thankful this person did that for you. I have received emails in the past that have not done that and my email which I don't give out very often was leaked to roughly 50 people along with my real name. I was NOT HAPPY. This is a very smart practice when sending out emails to multiple email addresses. Always put your own email address on the "TO" line and BCC everyone else to keep things private.
 

EQ Admin

EQ Forum Admin
Staff member
It goes both ways.

If it's someone you know they were respecting privacy.

If it was spam, yes spammers do it too to try and get past spam filters.

It sounds like the email you received included you as a BCC recipient.
 

foggy

Valued Member
FWIW, whenever a friend or relative asks me for my email address, I usually ask why (unless the context of our conversation made it obvious). If they say that they would like to send me those kind of emails ("You Gotta See This Video!!!!!!!!", ""Cute Kittens Mothered By Dachshund," "Fwd:Re:Fwd:Re:Fwd:Re:Fwd:Wow!", etc.), I will give them an alias or a 'junk' email address, since I know generally what would/will be coming to it. That way, I won't be too terribly upset IF the address ends up in the "CC" or "To" field.
 

THERESA

Customer Service
That's an awesome idea. I can't tell you how many times I have had relatives screw my email address up for me with that stupid stuff. I just don't give it out anymore.
 
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