Insidious Big Brother Database

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The Insidious Big Brother Database, or more commonly the BBDB, is a contact manager for Emacs which integrates with several popular Emacs news and e-mail clients (including Gnus, VM, MH-E, and RMAIL).

The BBDB provides functionality similar to what programs such as Outlook and Eudora have. It keeps a database of contacts, which may have information such as name, e-mail address, postal address, and phone number.

Unlike many other contact managers, the BBDB does not limit a contact to only having one e-mail address. Other contact managers (RoundCube, for example) insist on a "one contact, one e-mail address" rule, which can be frustrating when corresponding with someone who actively uses more than one address. The BBDB, on the other hand, allows an unlimited number of e-mail addresses (as well as postal addresses and phone numbers) for each contact. This more accurately reflects the relationship between a person (the contact) and that person's e-mail addresses. Some clients, like GMail, are similarly designed so that a person may have more than one e-mail address, but if two contacts are created based on incoming e-mail from a single person, they must be merged manually. The BBDB automates merging in order to encourage a "one person, one contact" relationship.

The BBDB is also designed to generate its database in a mostly-automated fashion by watching incoming news and e-mail. This means that when a user begins corresponding with someone new, they will not have to do anything to add them to the database.

The BBDB provides other funcions for its user's convenience. One option allows it to use the contact's name from the BBDB when displaying the sender of an e-mail or news post, rather than the name the sender specified from their client. This can provide a more uniform appearance for the user, since names will appear as they prefer to see them, rather than how each sender prefers them to be seen.