Many people send emails to multiple recipients and ALL of the recipient's names and addresses details are clearly visible at the start of the email when you open it. It is very easy for someone who creates mailing lists, which can be used to send spam emails, to take all of these details and include them in their mailing list. It is possible to receive an email that has been forwarded numerous times, thus making it easy to get many hundreds of personal address details from just one forwarded email!

If you want to try and help to stop spam, and at the same time keep the identities of your friends more private, please follow this easy to follow advice.

In Outlook Express, press "Create" to prepare the email for sending.

Make sure the "To" line of the email contains NOTHING.

Be sure you can see the "Cc" and "Bcc" boxes. If you cannot see the "Bcc" line, press "View" and click on "View All Headers".

Just click on the Box with the letters "Bcc" in and it will open your email address book for you to choose the people you want to send it to.

Highlight the addresses one at a time in the left panel and then click on the Bcc and it will put it in the Bcc Box.You can remove anyone that you enter by mistake by right-clicking and selecting 'Remove'. When you have included everyone, press OK.

When you send it, the person receiving it will open it and see that it is addressed from you to 'Undisclosed Recipients'. Much nicer than all of those email addresses showing at the top of an email.

In these days when spammers are creating a major problem in the email system, it makes good sense to try and do your bit to keep people's identities more private.