Email Ettiquties

EmailFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the communications medium. For the former manufacturing conglomerate, see Email

Limited.

The at sign, a part of every SMTP email address[1]

Electronic mail, commonly called email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an

author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internetor other computer networks.

Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the same time, a

la instant messaging. Today's email systems are based on a store-and-forward model.

Email servers accept, forward, deliver and store messages. Neither the users nor their computers are required

to be online simultaneously; they need connect only briefly, typically to an email server, for as long as it takes

to send or receive messages.

An email message consists of three components, the message envelope, the message header, and the

message body. The message header contains control information, including, minimally, an originator's email

address and one or more recipient addresses. Usually descriptive information is also added, such as a subject

header field and a message submission date/time stamp.

Originally a text only (7 bit ASCII and others) communications medium, email was extended to carry multi-

media content attachments, a process standardized in RFC 2045 through 2049. Collectively, these RFCs have

come to be called Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME).

The history of modern, global Internet email services reaches back to the early ARPANET. Standards for

encoding email messages were proposed as early as 1973 (RFC 561). Conversion from ARPANET to the

Internet in the early 1980s produced the core of the current services. An email sent in the early 1970s looks

quite similar to a basic text message sent on the Internet today.

Network-based email was initially exchanged on the ARPANET in extensions to the File Transfer

Protocol (FTP), but is now carried by the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), first published

as Internet standard10 (RFC 821) in 1982. In the process of transporting email messages between systems,

SMTP communicates delivery parameters using a message envelope separate from the message (header and

body) itself.

[edit]Spelling

There are several spelling variations that occasionally prove cause for surprisingly vehement disagreement.[2]

[3]

email is the form required by IETF Requests for Comment and working groups[4] and increasingly by style

guides.[5][6][7] This spelling also appears in most dictionaries.[8][9][10][11][12][13]

e-mail is a form recommended by some prominent journalistic and technical style guides.[14][15] According

to Corpus of Contemporary American English data, this form appears most frequently in edited, published

American English writing.[16]

mail was the form used in the original RFC. The service is referred to as mail and a single piece of

electronic mail is called a message.[17][18][19]

eMail, capitalizing only the letter M, was common among ARPANET users and the early developers

of Unix, CMS, AppleLink, eWorld, AOL, GEnie, and Hotmail.[citation needed]

EMail is a traditional form that has been used in RFCs for the "Author's Address",[18][19] and is expressly

required "...for historical reasons...".[20]

E-mail, capitalizing the initial letter E in the same way as A-bomb, H-bomb, X-ray, T-shirt, and similar

shortenings.[21]

[edit]Origin

Electronic mail predates the inception of the Internet, and was in fact a crucial tool in creating it.[22]

MIT first demonstrated the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) in 1961.[23] It allowed multiple users

to log into the IBM 7094[24] from remote dial-up terminals, and to store files online on disk. This new ability

encouraged users to share information in new ways. Email started in 1965 as a way for multiple users of

a time-sharing mainframe computer to communicate. Among the first systems to have such a facility

wereSDC's Q32 and MIT's CTSS.

[edit]Host-based mail systems

The original email systems allowed communication only between users who logged into the same host or

"mainframe". This could be hundreds or even thousands of users within an organization. Examples

includeMIT's 1965 CTSS MAIL,[25] Larry Breed's 1972 APL Mailbox (which was used by the

1976 Carter/Mondale presidential campaign)[26][27], the original 1972 Unix mail program[28][29], IBM's

1981 PROFS, and Digital Equipment Corporation's 1982 ALL-IN-1,[30].

[edit]Homogeneous email networks and LAN-based mail systems

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Many early peer-to-peer email networking only worked among computers running the same OS or program.

Examples include:

By 1966 or earlier, it is possible that the SAGE system had a limited form of email[citation needed]

1978's uucp[31] and 1980's Usenet provided Unix-to-Unix copying of email, files, and shared fora over dialup

modems or leased lines

BITNET in 1981 allowed IBM mainframes to communicate email over leased lines.

FidoNet's 1984 application software for IBM PC's running DOS transferred email and shared bulletin board

postings by dialup modem

In the early 1980s, networked personal computers on LANs became increasingly important. Server-based

systems similar to the earlier mainframe systems were developed. Again these systems initially allowed

communication only between users logged into the same server infrastructure. Eventually these systems could

also be linked between different organizations, as long as they ran the same email system and proprietary

protocol.

Examples include cc:Mail, Lantastic, WordPerfect Office, Microsoft Mail, Banyan VINES and Lotus

Notes - with various vendors supplying gateway software to link these incompatible systems.

[edit]Attempts at interoperability

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Early interoperability among independent systems included:

ARPANET, the forerunner of today's Internet, defined the first protocols for dissimilar computers to exchange

email

uucp implementations for non-Unix systems were used as an open "glue" between differing mail systems,

primarily over dialup telephones

CSNet used dial-up telephone access to link additional sites to the ARPANET and then Internet

Later efforts at interoperability standardization included:

Novell briefly championed the open MHS protocol but abandoned it after purchasing the non-MHS

WordPerfect Office (renamed Groupwise)

The Coloured Book protocols on UK academic networks until 1992

X.400 in the 1980s and early 1990s was promoted by major vendors and mandated for government use

under GOSIP but abandoned by all but a few — in favor of Internet SMTP by the mid-1990s.

[edit]From SNDMSG to MSG

In the early 1970s, Ray Tomlinson updated an existing utility called SNDMSG so that it could copy messages

(as files) over the network. Lawrence Roberts, the project manager for the ARPANET development, took the

idea of READMAIL, which dumped all "recent" messages onto the user's terminal, and wrote a program

for TENEX in TECO macros called RD which permitted accessing individual messages.[32] Barry Wessler then

updated RD and called it NRD.[citation needed]

Marty Yonke combined rewrote NRD to include reading, access to SNMSG for sending, and a help system,

and called the utility WRD which was later known as BANANARD. John Vittal then updated this version to

include message forwarding and an Answer command that automatically created a reply message with the

correct address(es). This was the first email "reply" command; the system was called MSG. With inclusion of

these features, MSG is considered to be the first integrated modern email program, from which many other

applications have descended.[32]

[edit]The rise of ARPANET mail

The ARPANET computer network made a large contribution to the development of email. There is one

report that indicates experimental inter-system email transfers began shortly after its creation in 1969.[25] Ray

Tomlinson is generally credited as having sent the first email across a network, initiating the use of the "@"

sign to separate the names of the user and the user's machine in 1971, when he sent a message from

one Digital Equipment Corporation DEC-10 computer to another DEC-10. The two machines were placed

next to each other.[33][34] Tomlinson's work was quickly adopted across the ARPANET, which significantly

increased the popularity of email. For many years, email was the killer app of the ARPANET and then the

Internet.

Most other networks had their own email protocols and address formats; as the influence of the ARPANET

and later the Internet grew, central sites often hosted email gateways that passed mail between the Internet

and these other networks. Internet email addressing is still complicated by the need to handle mail destined for

these older networks. Some well-known examples of these were UUCP (mostly Unix

computers), BITNET (mostly IBM and VAX mainframes at universities), FidoNet (personal computers),

DECNET (various networks) and CSNET a forerunner of NSFNet.

An example of an Internet email address that routed mail to a user at a UUCP host:

hubhost!middlehost!edgehost!user@uucpgateway.somedomain.example.com

This was necessary because in early years UUCP computers did not maintain (or consult servers for)

information about the location of all hosts they exchanged mail with, but rather only knew how to communicate

with a few network neighbors; email messages (and other data such as Usenet News) were passed along in a

chain among hosts who had explicitly agreed to share data with each other.

[edit]Operation overview

The diagram to the right shows a typical sequence of events[35] that takes place when Alice composes a

message using her mail user agent (MUA). She enters the email address of her correspondent, and hits

the "send" button.

1. Her MUA formats the message in email format and uses the Submission Protocol (a profile of

the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), see RFC 4409) to send the message to the local mail

submission agent (MSA), in this case smtp.a.org, run by Alice's internet service provider (ISP).

2. The MSA looks at the destination address provided in the SMTP protocol (not from the message

header), in this case [email protected]. An Internet email address is a string of the

form localpart@exampledomain. The part before the @ sign is the local part of the address,

often the username of the recipient, and the part after the @ sign is a domain name or a fully qualified

domain name. The MSA resolves a domain name to determine the fully qualified domain name of

the mail exchange server in the Domain Name System (DNS).

3. The DNS server for the b.org domain, ns.b.org, responds with any MX records listing the mail

exchange servers for that domain, in this case mx.b.org, a message transfer agent (MTA) server run

by Bob's ISP.

4. smtp.a.org sends the message to mx.b.org using SMTP.

This server may need to forward the message to other MTAs before the message reaches the final message

delivery agent (MDA).

1. The MDA delivers it to the mailbox of the user bob.

2. Bob presses the "get mail" button in his MUA, which picks up the message using either the Post Office

Protocol (POP3) or the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP4).

That sequence of events applies to the majority of email users. However, there are many alternative

possibilities and complications to the email system:

Alice or Bob may use a client connected to a corporate email system, such as IBM Lotus

Notes or Microsoft Exchange. These systems often have their own internal email format and their clients

typically communicate with the email server using a vendor-specific, proprietary protocol. The server sends

or receives email via the Internet through the product's Internet mail gateway which also does any

necessary reformatting. If Alice and Bob work for the same company, the entire transaction may happen

completely within a single corporate email system.

Alice may not have a MUA on her computer but instead may connect to a webmail service.

Alice's computer may run its own MTA, so avoiding the transfer at step 1.

Bob may pick up his email in many ways, for example logging into mx.b.org and reading it directly, or by

using a webmail service.

Domains usually have several mail exchange servers so that they can continue to accept mail when the

main mail exchange server is not available.

Email messages are not secure if email encryption is not used correctly.

Many MTAs used to accept messages for any recipient on the Internet and do their best to deliver them. Such

MTAs are called open mail relays. This was very important in the early days of the Internet when network

connections were unreliable. If an MTA couldn't reach the destination, it could at least deliver it to a relay closer

to the destination. The relay stood a better chance of delivering the message at a later time. However, this

mechanism proved to be exploitable by people sending unsolicited bulk email and as a consequence very

few modern MTAs are open mail relays, and many MTAs don't accept messages from open mail relays

because such messages are very likely to be spam.

[edit]Message format

The Internet email message format is defined in RFC 5322, with multi-media content attachments being

defined in RFC 2045 through RFC 2049, collectively called Multipurpose Internet Mail

Extensions orMIME. Prior to the introduction of RFC 2822 in 2001, the format described by RFC 822 was the

standard for Internet email for nearly 20 years. RFC 822 was published in 1982 and based on the earlier RFC

733 for the ARPANET (see).[36]

Internet email messages consist of two major sections:

Header — Structured into fields such as From, To, CC, Subject, Date, and other information about the

email.

Body — The basic content, as unstructured text; sometimes containing a signature block at the end. This is

exactly the same as the body of a regular letter.

The header is separated from the body by a blank line.

[edit]Message header

Each message has exactly one header, which is structured into fields. Each field has a name and a

value. RFC 5322 specifies the precise syntax.

Informally, each line of text in the header that begins with a printable character begins a separate field. The

field name starts in the first character of the line and ends before the separator character ":". The separator is

then followed by the field value (the "body" of the field). The value is continued onto subsequent lines if those

lines have a space or tab as their first character. Field names and values are restricted to 7-

bit ASCII characters. Non-ASCII values may be represented using MIME encoded words.

[edit]Header fields

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The message header must include at least the following fields[37]:

From: The email address, and optionally the name of the author(s). In many email clients not changeable

except through changing account settings.

Date: The local time and date when the message was written. Like the From: field, many email clients fill

this in automatically when sending. The recipient's client may then display the time in the format and time

zone local to him/her.

The message header should include at least the following fields[38]:

Message-ID: Also an automatically generated field; used to prevent multiple delivery and for reference in

In-Reply-To: (see below).

In-Reply-To: Message-ID of the message that this is a reply to. Used to link related messages together. This

field only applies for reply messages.

RFC 3864 describes registration procedures for message header fields at the IANA; it provides

for permanent and provisional message header field names, including also fields defined for MIME,

netnews, and http, and referencing relevant RFCs. Common header fields for email include:

To: The email address(es), and optionally name(s) of the message's recipient(s). Indicates primary

recipients (multiple allowed), for secondary recipients see Cc: and Bcc: below.

Subject: A brief summary of the topic of the message. Certain abbreviations are commonly used in the

subject, including "RE:" and "FW:".

Bcc: Blind Carbon Copy; addresses added to the SMTP delivery list but not (usually) listed in the message

data, remaining invisible to other recipients.

Cc: Carbon copy; Many email clients will mark email in your inbox differently depending on whether you are

in the To: or Cc: list.

Content-Type: Information about how the message is to be displayed, usually a MIME type.

Precedence: commonly with values "bulk", "junk", or "list"; used to indicate that automated "vacation" or

"out of office" responses should not be returned for this mail, e.g. to prevent vacation notices from being

sent to all other subscribers of a mailinglist. Sendmail uses this header to affect prioritization of queued

email, with "Precedence: special-delivery" messages delivered sooner. With modern high-bandwidth

networks delivery priority is less of an issue than it once was. Microsoft Exchange respects a fine-grained

automatic response suppression mechanism, the X-Auto-Response-Suppress header.[39]

Received: Tracking information generated by mail servers that have previously handled a message, in

reverse order (last handler first).

References: Message-ID of the message that this is a reply to, and the message-id of the message the

previous was reply a reply to, etc.

Reply-To: Address that should be used to reply to the message.

Sender: Address of the actual sender acting on behalf of the author listed in the From: field (secretary, list

manager, etc.).

Note that the To: field is not necessarily related to the addresses to which the message is delivered. The actual

delivery list is supplied separately to the transport protocol, SMTP, which may or may not originally have been

extracted from the header content. The "To:" field is similar to the addressing at the top of a conventional letter

which is delivered according to the address on the outer envelope. Also note that the "From:" field does not

have to be the real sender of the email message. One reason is that it is very easy to fake the "From:" field and

let a message seem to be from any mail address. It is possible to digitally signemail, which is much harder to

fake, but such signatures require extra programming and often external programs to verify. Some ISPs do not

relay email claiming to come from a domain not hosted by them, but very few (if any) check to make sure that

the person or even email address named in the "From:" field is the one associated with the connection. Some

ISPs apply email authentication systems to email being sent through their MTA to allow other MTAs to

detect forged spam that might appear to come from them.

Recently the IETF EAI working group has defined some experimental extensions to allow Unicode characters

to be used within the header. In particular, this allows email addresses to use non-ASCII characters. Such

characters must only be used by servers that support these extensions.

[edit]Message body

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[edit]Content encoding

Email was originally designed for 7-bit ASCII.[40] Much email software is 8-bit clean but must assume it will

communicate with 7-bit servers and mail readers. The MIME standard introduced character set specifiers and

two content transfer encodings to enable transmission of non-ASCII data: quoted printable for mostly 7 bit

content with a few characters outside that range and base64 for arbitrary binary data.

The 8BITMIMEand BINARY extensions were introduced to allow transmission of mail without the need for

these encodings, but many mail transport agents still do not support them fully. In some countries, several

encoding schemes coexist; as the result, by default, the message in a non-Latin alphabet language appears in

non-readable form (the only exception is coincidence, when the sender and receiver use the same encoding

scheme). Therefore, for international character sets, Unicode is growing in popularity.

[edit]Plain text and HTML

Most modern graphic email clients allow the use of either plain text or HTML for the message body at the

option of the user. HTML email messages often include an automatically generated plain text copy as well, for

compatibility reasons.

Advantages of HTML include the ability to include in-line links and images, set apart previous messages

in block quotes, wrap naturally on any display, use emphasis such as underlines and italics, and

change fontstyles. Disadvantages include the increased size of the email, privacy concerns about web bugs,

abuse of HTML email as a vector for phishing attacks and the spread of malicious software.[41]

Some web based Mailing lists recommend that all posts be made in plain-text, with 72 or 80 characters per

line[42][43] for all the above reasons, but also because they have a significant number of readers usingtext-

based email clients such as Mutt.

Some Microsoft email clients allow rich formatting using RTF, but unless the recipient is guaranteed to have

a compatible email client this should be avoided.[44]

In order to ensure that HTML sent in an email is rendered properly by the recipient's client software, an

additional header must be specified when sending: "Content-type: text/html". Most email programs send this

header automatically.

[edit]Servers and client applications

The interface of an email client, Thunderbird.

Messages are exchanged between hosts using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol with software programs

called mail transfer agents. Users can retrieve their messages from servers using standard protocols such

as POP or IMAP, or, as is more likely in a large corporate environment, with a proprietary protocol specific

to Novell Groupwise, Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange Servers. Webmail interfaces allow users to

access their mail with any standard web browser, from any computer, rather than relying on an email client.

Mail can be stored on the client, on the server side, or in both places. Standard formats for mailboxes

include Maildir and mbox. Several prominent email clients use their own proprietary format and require

conversion software to transfer email between them.

Accepting a message obliges an MTA to deliver it,[45] and when a message cannot be delivered, that MTA must

send a bounce message back to the sender, indicating the problem.

[edit]Filename extensions

Upon reception of email messages, email client applications save message in operating system files in the

file-system. Some clients save individual messages as separate files, while others use various database

formats, often proprietary, for collective storage. A historical standard of storage is the mboxformat. The

specific format used is often indicated by special filename extensions:

eml

Used by many email clients including Microsoft Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Mozilla Thunderbird.

[46] The files are plain text in MIME format, containing the email header as well as the message contents

and attachments in one or more of several formats.

emlx

Used by Apple Mail.

msg

Used by Microsoft Office Outlook and OfficeLogic Groupware.

mbx

Used by Opera Mail, KMail, and Apple Mail based on the mbox format.

Some applications (like Apple Mail) leave attachments encoded in messages for

searching while also saving separate copies of the attachments. Others separate

attachments from messages and save them in a specific directory.

[edit]URI scheme mailto:

Main article: mailto

The URI scheme, as registered with the IANA, defines the mailto: scheme for SMTP

email addresses. Though its use is not strictly defined, URLs of this form are intended to

be used to open the new message window of the user's mail client when the URL is

activated, with the address as defined by the URL in the To: field.[47]

[edit]Use

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[edit]In society

There are numerous ways in which people have changed the way they communicate in

the last 50 years; email is certainly one of them. Traditionally, social interaction in the

local community was the basis for communication – face to face. Yet, today face-to-face

meetings are no longer the primary way to communicate as one can use a landline

telephone, mobile phones, fax services, or any number of the computer mediated

communications such as email.

[edit]Flaming

Flaming occurs when a person sends a message with angry or antagonistic content.

Flaming is assumed to be more common today because of the ease and impersonality

of email communications: confrontations in person or via telephone require direct

interaction, where social norms encourage civility, whereas typing a message to another

person is an indirect interaction, so civility may be forgotten.[citation needed] Flaming is

generally looked down upon by Internet communities as it is considered rude and non-

productive.

[edit]Email bankruptcy

Main article: Email bankruptcy

Also known as "email fatigue", email bankruptcy is when a user ignores a large number

of email messages after falling behind in reading and answering them. The reason for

falling behind is often due to information overload and a general sense there is so much

information that it is not possible to read it all. As a solution, people occasionally send a

boilerplate message explaining that the email inbox is being cleared out.Harvard

University law professor Lawrence Lessig is credited with coining this term, but he

may only have popularized it.[48]

[edit]In business

Email was widely accepted by the business community as the first broad electronic

communication medium and was the first ‘e-revolution’ in business communication.

Email is very simple to understand and like postal mail, email solves two basic problems

of communication: logistics and synchronization (see below).

LAN based email is also an emerging form of usage for business. It not only allows the

business user to download mail when offline, it also provides the small business user to

have multiple users email ID's with just one email connection.

[edit]Pros

The problem of logistics: Much of the business world relies upon communications

between people who are not physically in the same building, area or even country;

setting up and attending an in-person meeting, telephone call, or conference call can

be inconvenient, time-consuming, and costly. Email provides a way to exchange

information between two or more people with no set-up costs and that is generally

far less expensive than physical meetings or phone calls.

The problem of synchronisation: With real time communication by meetings or

phone calls, participants have to work on the same schedule, and each participant

must spend the same amount of time in the meeting or call. Email

allows asynchrony: each participant may control their schedule independently.

[edit]Cons

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Most business workers today spend from one to two hours of their working day on email:

reading, ordering, sorting, ‘re-contextualizing’ fragmented information, and writing email.

[49] The use of email is increasing due to increasing levels of globalisation—labour

division and outsourcing amongst other things. Email can lead to some well-known

problems:

Loss of context: which means that the context is lost forever; there is no way to get

the text back. Information in context (as in a newspaper) is much easier and faster

to understand than unedited and sometimes unrelated fragments of information.

Communicating in context can only be achieved when both parties have a full

understanding of the context and issue in question.

Information overload: Email is a push technology—the sender controls who receives

the information. Convenient availability of mailing lists and use of "copy all" can lead

to people receiving unwanted or irrelevant information of no use to them.

Inconsistency: Email can duplicate information. This can be a problem when a large

team is working on documents and information while not in constant contact with the

other members of their team.

Liability. Statements made in an email can be deemed legally binding and be used

against a party in a Court of law.[50]

Despite these disadvantages, email has become the most widely used medium of

communication within the business world. In fact, a 2010 study on workplace

communication, found that 83% of U.S. knowledge workers felt that email was critical

to their success and productivity at work.[51]

[edit]Problems

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[edit]Attachment size limitation

Main article: Email attachment

Email messages may have one or more attachments. Attachments serve the purpose of

delivering binary or text files of unspecified size. In principle there is no technical intrinsic

restriction in the SMTP protocol limiting the size or number of attachments. In practice,

however, email service providers implement various limitations on the permissible size

of files or the size of an entire message.

Furthermore, due to technical reasons, often a small attachment can increase in size

when sent,[52] which can be confusing to senders when trying to assess whether they

can or cannot send a file by email, and this can result in their message being rejected.

As larger and larger file sizes are being created and traded, many users are either

forced to upload and download their files using an FTP server, or more popularly, use

online file sharing facilities or services, usually over web-friendly HTTP, in order to send

and receive them.

[edit]Information overload

A December 2007 New York Times blog post described information overload as "a

$650 Billion Drag on the Economy",[53] and the New York Times reported in April 2008

that "E-MAIL has become the bane of some people’s professional lives" due to

information overload, yet "none of the current wave of high-profile Internet start-ups

focused on e-mail really eliminates the problem of e-mail overload because none helps

us prepare replies".[54] GigaOm posted a similar article in September

2010, highlighting research that found 57% of knowledge workers were overwhelmed

by the volume of email they received.[51]

Technology investors reflect similar concerns.[55]

[edit]Spamming and computer viruses

The usefulness of email is being threatened by four phenomena: email

bombardment, spamming, phishing, and email worms.

Spamming is unsolicited commercial (or bulk) email. Because of the very low cost of

sending email, spammers can send hundreds of millions of email messages each day

over an inexpensive Internet connection. Hundreds of active spammers sending this

volume of mail results in information overload for many computer users who receive

voluminous unsolicited email each day.[56][57]

Email worms use email as a way of replicating themselves into vulnerable computers.

Although the first email worm affected UNIX computers, the problem is most common

today on the more popular Microsoft Windows operating system.

The combination of spam and worm programs results in users receiving a constant

drizzle of junk email, which reduces the usefulness of email as a practical tool.

A number of anti-spam techniques mitigate the impact of spam. In the United

States, U.S. Congress has also passed a law, the Can Spam Act of 2003,

attempting to regulate such email. Australia also has very strict spam laws restricting

the sending of spam from an Australian ISP,[58] but its impact has been minimal since

most spam comes from regimes that seem reluctant to regulate the sending of spam.

[citation needed]

[edit]Email spoofing

Main article: Email spoofing

Email spoofing occurs when the header information of an email is altered to make the

message appear to come from a known or trusted source. It is often used as a ruse to

collect personal information.

[edit]Email bombing

Email bombing is the intentional sending of large volumes of messages to a target

address. The overloading of the target email address can render it unusable and can

even cause the mail server to crash.

[edit]Privacy concerns

Main article: Email privacy

Today it can be important to distinguish between Internet and internal email systems.

Internet email may travel and be stored on networks and computers without the sender's

or the recipient's control. During the transit time it is possible that third parties read or

even modify the content. Internal mail systems, in which the information never leaves

the organizational network, may be more secure, although information

technology personnel and others whose function may involve monitoring or managing

may be accessing the email of other employees.

Email privacy, without some security precautions, can be compromised because:

email messages are generally not encrypted.

email messages have to go through intermediate computers before reaching their

destination, meaning it is relatively easy for others to intercept and read messages.

many Internet Service Providers (ISP) store copies of email messages on their mail

servers before they are delivered. The backups of these can remain for up to

several months on their server, despite deletion from the mailbox.

the "Received:"-fields and other information in the email can often identify the

sender, preventing anonymous communication.

There are cryptography applications that can serve as a remedy to one or more of the

above. For example, Virtual Private Networks or the Tor anonymity network can

be used to encrypt traffic from the user machine to a safer network while GPG, PGP,

SMEmail,[59] or S/MIME can be used for end-to-end message encryption, and SMTP

STARTTLS or SMTP over Transport Layer Security/Secure Sockets Layer can be

used to encrypt communications for a single mail hop between the SMTP client and the

SMTP server.

Additionally, many mail user agents do not protect logins and passwords, making

them easy to intercept by an attacker. Encrypted authentication schemes such

as SASL prevent this.

Finally, attached files share many of the same hazards as those found in peer-to-peer

filesharing. Attached files may contain trojans or viruses.

[edit]Tracking of sent mail

The original SMTP mail service provides limited mechanisms for tracking a transmitted

message, and none for verifying that it has been delivered or read. It requires that each

mail server must either deliver it onward or return a failure notice (bounce message), but

both software bugs and system failures can cause messages to be lost. To remedy this,

the IETF introduced Delivery Status Notifications (delivery receipts) andMessage

Disposition Notifications (return receipts); however, these are not universally

deployed in production. (A complete Message Tracking mechanism was also defined,

but it never gained traction; see RFCs 3885 through 3888.)

Many ISPs now deliberately disable non-delivery reports (NDRs) and delivery receipts

due to the activities of spammers:

Delivery Reports can be used to verify whether an address exists and so is

available to be spammed

If the spammer uses a forged sender email address (E-mail spoofing), then the

innocent email address that was used can be flooded with NDRs from the many

invalid email addresses the spammer may have attempted to mail. These NDRs

then constitute spam from the ISP to the innocent user

There are a number of systems that allow the sender to see if messages have been

opened.[60][61][62] The receiver could also let the sender know that the emails have been

opened through an "Okay" button. A check sign can appear in the sender's screen when

the receiver's "Okay" button is pressed.

[edit]US Government

The US Government has been involved in email in several different ways.

Starting in 1977, the US Postal Service (USPS) recognized that electronic mail and

electronic transactions posed a significant threat to First Class mail volumes and

revenue. Therefore, the USPS initiated an experimental email service known as E-COM.

Electronic messages were transmitted to a post office, printed out, and delivered as hard

copy. To take advantage of the service, an individual had to transmit at least 200

messages. The delivery time of the messages was the same as First Class mail and

cost 26 cents. Both the Postal Regulatory Commission and the Federal

Communications Commission opposed E-COM. The FCC concluded that E-COM

constituted common carriage under its jurisdiction and the USPS would have to file

a tariff.[63] Three years after initiating the service, USPS canceled E-COM and

attempted to sell it off.[64][65][66][67][68][69]

The early ARPANET dealt with multiple email clients that had various, and at times

incompatible, formats. For example, in the system Multics, the "@" sign meant "kill line"

and anything after the "@" sign was ignored.[67] The Department of

Defense DARPA desired to have uniformity and interoperability for email and therefore

funded efforts to drive towards unified inter-operable standards. This led to David

Crocker, John Vittal, Kenneth Pogran, and Austin Henderson publishing RFC 733,

"Standard for the Format of ARPA Network Text Message" (November 21, 1977), which

was apparently not effective. In 1979, a meeting was held at BBN to resolve

incompatibility issues. Jon Postel recounted the meeting in RFC 808, "Summary of

Computer Mail Services Meeting Held at BBN on 10 January 1979" (March 1, 1982),

which includes an appendix listing the varying email systems at the time. This, in turn,

lead to the release of David Crocker's RFC 822, "Standard for the Format of ARPA

Internet Text Messages" (August 13, 1982).[70]

The National Science Foundation took over operations of the ARPANET and Internet

from the Department of Defense, and initiated NSFNet, a new backbone for the

network. A part of the NSFNet AUP forbade commercial traffic.[71] In 1988, Vint

Cerf arranged for an interconnection of MCI Mail with NSFNET on an experimental

basis. The following year Compuserve email interconnected with NSFNET. Within a few

years the commercial traffic restriction was removed from NSFNETs AUP, and NSFNET

was privatised.

In the late 1990s, the Federal Trade Commission grew concerned with fraud

transpiring in email, and initiated a series of procedures on spam, fraud, and phishing.

[72] In 2004, FTC jurisdiction over spam was codified into law in the form of the CAN

SPAM Act.[73] Several other US Federal Agencies have also exercised jurisdiction

including the Department of Justice and the Secret Service.

This site explains how to send effective email replies. It discusses why email etiquette is necessary, lists email etiquette rules, and explains how to enforce these rules by creating a company email policy

Email etiquette 

 It is amazing to find that in this day and age, some companies have still not realized how important their email communications are. Many companies send email replies late or not at all, or send replies that do not actually answer

the questions you asked. If your company is able to deal professionally with email, this will provide your company with that all important competitive edge. Moreover by educating employees as to what can and cannot be said in an email, you can protect your company from awkward liability issues. This website discusses the main etiquette rules and provides advice on how employers can ensure that they are implemented.

'By requiring employees to use appropriate, businesslike language in all electronic communications, employers can limit their liability risks and improve the overall effectiveness of the organization's e-mail and Internet copy in the process' - Excerpt from 'Writing Effective E-mail', by Nancy Flynn and Tom Flynn.

Why do you need email etiquette?What are the email etiquette rules?How do you enforce email etiquette?

Why do you need email etiquette?

A company needs to implement etiquette rules for the following three reasons:

Professionalism: by using proper email language your company will convey a professional image.Efficiency: emails that get to the point are much more effective than

poorly worded emails.Protection from liability: employee awareness of email risks will protect

your company from costly law suits.

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What are the etiquette rules?

There are many etiquette guides and many different etiquette rules. Some rules will differ according to the nature of your business and the corporate culture. Below we list what we consider as the 32 most important email etiquette rules that apply to nearly all companies.

32 most important email etiquette tips:

1. Be concise and to the point2. Answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions3. Use proper spelling, grammar & punctuation4. Make it personal5. Use templates for frequently used responses6. Answer swiftly7. Do not attach unnecessary files8. Use proper structure & layout9. Do not overuse the high priority option10. Do not write in CAPITALS11. Don't leave out the message thread12. Add disclaimers to your emails13. Read the email before you send it14. Do not overuse Reply to All15. Mailings > use the bcc: field or do a mail merge16. Take care with abbreviations and emoticons17. Be careful with formatting18. Take care with rich text and HTML messages19. Do not forward chain letters20. Do not request delivery and read receipts21. Do not ask to recall a message.22. Do not copy a message or attachment without permission23. Do not use email to discuss confidential information24. Use a meaningful subject25. Use active instead of passive26. Avoid using URGENT and IMPORTANT27. Avoid long sentences28. Don't send or forward emails containing libelous, defamatory, offensive, racist or obscene remarks29. Don't forward virus hoaxes and chain letters30. Keep your language gender neutral31. Don't reply to spam32. Use cc: field sparingly

1. Be concise and to the point.

Do not make an e-mail longer than it needs to be. Remember that reading an e-mail is harder than reading printed communications and a long e-mail can be very discouraging to read.

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2. Answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions.

An email reply must answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions – If you do not answer all the questions in the original email, you will receive further e-mails regarding the unanswered questions, which will not only waste your time and your customer’s time but also cause considerable frustration. Moreover, if you are able to pre-empt relevant questions, your customer will be grateful and impressed with your efficient and thoughtful customer service. Imagine for instance that a customer sends you an email asking which credit cards you accept. Instead of just listing the credit card types, you can guess that their next question will be about how they can order, so you also include some order information and a URL to your order page. Customers will definitely appreciate this.

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3. Use proper spelling, grammar & punctuation.

This is not only important because improper spelling, grammar and punctuation give a bad impression of your company, it is also important for conveying the message properly. E-mails with no full stops or commas are difficult to read and can sometimes even change the meaning of the text. And, if your program has a spell checking option, why not use it?

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4. Make it personal.

Not only should the e-mail be personally addressed, it should also include personal i.e. customized content. For this reason auto replies are usually not very effective. However, templates can be used effectively in this way, see next tip.

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5. Use templates for frequently used responses.

Some questions you get over and over again, such as directions to your office or how to subscribe to your newsletter. Save these texts as

response templates and paste these into your message when you need them. You can save your templates in a Word document, or use pre-formatted emails. Even better is a tool such as ReplyMate for Outlook (allows you to use 10 templates for free).

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6. Answer swiftly.

Customers send an e-mail because they wish to receive a quick response. If they did not want a quick response they would send a letter or a fax. Therefore, each e-mail should be replied to within at least 24 hours, and preferably within the same working day. If the email is complicated, just send an email back saying that you have received it and that you will get back to them. This will put the customer's mind at rest and usually customers will then be very patient!

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7. Do not attach unnecessary files.

By sending large attachments you can annoy customers and even bring down their e-mail system. Wherever possible try to compress attachments and only send attachments when they are productive. Moreover, you need to have a good virus scanner in place since your customers will not be very happy if you send them documents full of viruses!

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8. Use proper structure & layout.

Since reading from a screen is more difficult than reading from paper, the structure and lay out is very important for e-mail messages. Use short paragraphs and blank lines between each paragraph. When making points, number them or mark each point as separate to keep the overview.

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9. Do not overuse the high priority option.

We all know the story of the boy who cried wolf. If you overuse the high priority option, it will lose its function when you really need it. Moreover, even if a mail has high priority, your message will come across as slightly aggressive if you flag it as 'high priority'.

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10. Do not write in CAPITALS.

IF YOU WRITE IN CAPITALS IT SEEMS AS IF YOU ARE SHOUTING. This can be highly annoying and might trigger an unwanted response in the form of a flame mail. Therefore, try not to send any email text in capitals.

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11. Don't leave out the message thread.

When you reply to an email, you must include the original mail in your reply, in other words click 'Reply', instead of 'New Mail'. Some people say that you must remove the previous message since this has already been sent and is therefore unnecessary. However, I could not agree less. If you receive many emails you obviously cannot remember each individual email. This means that a 'threadless email' will not provide enough information and you will have to spend a frustratingly long time to find out the context of the email in order to deal with it. Leaving the thread might take a fraction longer in download time, but it will save the recipient much more time and frustration in looking for the related emails in their inbox!

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12. Add disclaimers to your emails.

It is important to add disclaimers to your internal and external mails, since this can help protect your company from liability. Consider the following scenario: an employee accidentally forwards a virus to a customer by email. The customer decides to sue your company for damages. If you add a disclaimer at the bottom of every external mail, saying that the recipient must check each email for viruses and that it cannot be held liable for any transmitted viruses, this will surely be of help to you in court (read more about email disclaimers). Another example: an employee sues the company for allowing a racist email to circulate the office. If your company has an email policy in place and adds an email disclaimer to every mail that states that employees are expressly required not to make defamatory statements, you have a good case of proving that the company did everything it could to prevent offensive emails.

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13. Read the email before you send it.

A lot of people don't bother to read an email before they send it out, as can be seen from the many spelling and grammar mistakes contained in emails. Apart from this, reading your email through the eyes of the recipient will help you send a more effective message and avoid misunderstandings and inappropriate comments.

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14. Do not overuse Reply to All.

Only use Reply to All if you really need your message to be seen by each person who received the original message.

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15. Mailings > use the Bcc: field or do a mail merge.

When sending an email mailing, some people place all the email addresses in the To: field. There are two drawbacks to this practice: (1) the recipient knows that you have sent the same message to a large number of recipients, and (2) you are publicizing someone else's email address without their permission. One way to get round this is to place all addresses in the Bcc: field. However, the recipient will only see the address from the To: field in their email, so if this was empty, the To: field will be blank and this might look like spamming. You could include the mailing list email address in the To: field, or even better, if you have Microsoft Outlook and Word you can do a mail merge and create one message for each recipient. A mail merge also allows you to use fields in the message so that you can for instance address each recipient personally. For more information on how to do a Word mail merge, consult the Help in Word.

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16. Take care with abbreviations and emoticons.

In business emails, try not to use abbreviations such as BTW (by the way) and LOL (laugh out loud). The recipient might not be aware of the meanings of the abbreviations and in business emails these are generally not appropriate. The same goes for emoticons, such as the smiley :-). If you are not sure whether your recipient knows what it means, it is better not to use it.

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17. Be careful with formatting.

Remember that when you use formatting in your emails, the sender might not be able to view formatting, or might see different fonts than you had intended. When using colors, use a color that is easy to read on the background.

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18. Take care with rich text and HTML messages.

Be aware that when you send an email in rich text or HTML format, the sender might only be able to receive plain text emails. If this is the case, the recipient will receive your message as a .txt attachment. Most email clients however, including Microsoft Outlook, are able to receive HTML and rich text messages.

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19. Do not forward chain letters.

Do not forward chain letters. We can safely say that all of them are hoaxes. Just delete the letters as soon as you receive them.

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20. Do not request delivery and read receipts.

This will almost always annoy your recipient before he or she has even read your message. Besides, it usually does not work anyway since the recipient could have blocked that function, or his/her software might not support it, so what is the use of using it? If you want to know whether an email was received it is better to ask the recipient to let you know if it was received.

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21. Do not ask to recall a message.

Biggest chances are that your message has already been delivered and read. A recall request would look very silly in that case wouldn't it? It is better just to send an email to say that you have made a mistake. This will look much more honest than trying to recall a message.

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22. Do not copy a message or attachment without permission.

Do not copy a message or attachment belonging to another user without permission of the originator. If you do not ask permission first, you might be infringing on copyright laws.

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23. Do not use email to discuss confidential information.

Sending an email is like sending a postcard. If you don't want your email to be displayed on a bulletin board, don't send it. Moreover, never make any libelous, sexist or racially discriminating comments in emails, even if they are meant to be a joke.

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24. Use a meaningful subject.

Try to use a subject that is meaningful to the recipient as well as yourself. For instance, when you send an email to a company requesting information about a product, it is better to mention the actual name of the product, e.g. 'Product A information' than to just say 'product information' or the company's name in the subject.

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25. Use active instead of passive.

Try to use the active voice of a verb wherever possible. For instance, 'We will process your order today', sounds better than 'Your order will be processed today'. The first sounds more personal, whereas the latter, especially when used frequently, sounds unnecessarily formal.

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26. Avoid using URGENT and IMPORTANT.

Even more so than the high-priority option, you must at all times try to avoid these types of words in an email or subject line. Only use this if it is a really, really urgent or important message.

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27. Avoid long sentences.

Try to keep your sentences to a maximum of 15-20 words. Email is meant to be a quick medium and requires a different kind of writing than letters. Also take care not to send emails that are too long. If a person receives an email that looks like a dissertation, chances are that they will not even attempt to read it!

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28. Don't send or forward emails containing libelous, defamatory, offensive, racist or obscene remarks.

By sending or even just forwarding one libelous, or offensive remark in an email, you and your company can face court cases resulting in multi-million dollar penalties.

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29. Don't forward virus hoaxes and chain letters.

If you receive an email message warning you of a new unstoppable virus that will immediately delete everything from your computer, this is most probably a hoax. By forwarding hoaxes you use valuable bandwidth and sometimes virus hoaxes contain viruses themselves, by attaching a so-called file that will stop the dangerous virus. The same goes for chain letters that promise incredible riches or ask your help for a charitable cause. Even if the content seems to be bona fide, the senders are usually not. Since it is impossible to find out whether a chain letter is real or not, the best place for it is the recycle bin.

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30. Keep your language gender neutral.

In this day and age, avoid using sexist language such as: 'The user should add a signature by configuring his email program'. Apart from using he/she, you can also use the neutral gender: ''The user should add a signature by configuring the email program'.

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31. Don't reply to spam.

By replying to spam or by unsubscribing, you are confirming that your email address is 'live'. Confirming this will only generate even more spam. Therefore, just hit the delete button or use email software to remove spam automatically.

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32. Use cc: field sparingly.

Try not to use the cc: field unless the recipient in the cc: field knows why they are receiving a copy of the message. Using the cc: field can be confusing since the recipients might not know who is supposed to act on the message. Also, when responding to a cc: message, should you include the other recipient in the cc: field as well? This will depend on the situation. In general, do not include the person in the cc: field unless you have a particular reason for wanting this person to see your response. Again, make sure that this person will know why they are receiving a copy.

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How do you enforce email etiquette?

The first step is to create a written email policy. This email policy should include all the do's and don'ts concerning the use of the company's email

system and should be distributed amongst all employees. Secondly, employees must be trained to fully understand the importance of email etiquette. Finally, implementation of the rules can be monitored by using email management software and email response tools.

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Of all Internet activities, email is the most popular. Almost 88 percent of all Internet users in the U.S. use email. This information comes from a survey conducted by the UCLA Center for Communication Policy (The UCLA Internet Report: Surveying the Digital Future. UCLA Center for Communication Policy. 2001). According to the same survey, approximately 90 percent of those who use the Internet at work use it to access business email.

There are two reasons I decided to write an article about email etiquette. The first one is the sheer number of people using email, especially those using it for business communications. Since you are reading this article which appears on the Web, there's a good chance you use email to communicate with others, including your boss, colleagues, clients, or prospective employers.

So, what's the second reason? Well, as the Career Planning Guide here on About, I receive a lot of email. A lot of it is well written. A lot of it isn't. Some messages go on and on and on, until finally the question is asked. Sometimes the length is necessary -- other times the writer could be more concise.

Some messages get right to the point ... a little too quickly. The writer wastes no time asking for what he or she needs without bothering to be polite. Some of my younger readers (I assume) use what I can only describe as some sort of shorthand, i.e. "Can U plz send info on careers?" This may be appropriate for communicating with your buddies through instant messaging, but not for writing to someone you've never met. Besides, being a little more specific might help me find the information faster.

Sometimes there are glaring errors, such as misspellings and very poor grammar. While this annoys me some, I can only imagine what a prospective employer would think when receiving a poorly written message. Because your correspondence says a lot about you, you should be aware of some basic email etiquette, sometimes known as netiquette.

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101 Email Etiquette TipsIt is important that whether for business or personal use that you follow the basics of email etiquette. This document covers for you the top tips for email etiquette that everyone needs to be aware of and follow. By doing so you will be a joy to communicate with while being perceived as a caring and intelligent human being.

Sending Emails

1. Make sure your e-mail includes a courteous greeting and closing. Helps to make your e-mail not seem demanding or terse.

2. Address your contact with the appropriate level of formality and make sure you spelled their name correctly.

3. Spell check - emails with typos are simply not taken as seriously.4. Read your email out loud to ensure the tone is that which you desire. Try to avoid relying on formatting

for emphasis; rather choose the words that reflect your meaning instead. A few additions of the words "please" and "thank you" go a long way!

5. Be sure you are including all relevant details or information necessary to understand your request or point of view. Generalities can many times causing confusion and unnecessary back and forths.

6. Are you using proper sentence structure? First word capitalized with appropriate punctuation? Multiple instances of !!!or ???are perceived as rude or condescending.

7. If your email is emotionally charged, walk away from the computer and wait to reply. Review the Sender's email again so that you are sure you are not reading anything into the email that simply isn't there.

8. If sending attachments, did you ask first when would be the best time to send? Did you check file size to make sure you don't fill the other side's inbox causing all subsequent e-mail to bounce?

9. Refrain from using the Reply to All feature to give your opinion to those who may not be interested. In most cases replying to the Sender alone is your best course of action.

10. Make one last check that the address or addresses in the To: field are those you wish to send your reply to.

11. Be sure your name is reflected properly in the From: field. Jane A. Doe (not jane, jane doe or JANE DOE).12. Type in complete sentences. To type random phrases or cryptic thoughts does not lend to clear

communication.13. Never assume the intent of an email. If you are not sure -- ask so as to avoid unnecessary

misunderstandings.14. Just because someone doesn't ask for a response doesn't mean you ignore them. Always acknowledge

emails from those you know in a timely manner.15. Be sure the Subject: field accurately reflects the content of your email.16. Don't hesitate to say thank you, how are you, or appreciate your help!17. Keep emails brief and to the point. Save long conversations for the old fashioned telephone.

18. Always end your emails with "Thank you," "Sincerely," "Take it easy," "Best regards" - something!

Formatting Emails

19. Do not type in all caps. That's yelling or reflects shouting emphasis.20. If you bold your type, know you are bolding your statement and it will be taken that way by the other

side - X10!21. Do not use patterned backgrounds. Makes your email harder to read.22. Stay away from fancy-schmancy fonts -- only the standard fonts are on all computers.23. Use emoticons sparingly to ensure your tone and intent are clear.24. Typing your emails in all small case gives the perception of lack of education or laziness.25. Refrain from using multiple font colors in one email. It makes your email harder to view and can add to

your intent being misinterpreted.26. Use formatting sparingly. Instead try to rely on choosing the most accurate words possible to reflect your

tone and avoid misunderstandings in the process.

Email Attachments

27. When sending large attachments, always "zip" or compress them before sending.28. Never send large attachments without notice! Always ask what would be the best time to send them

first.29. Learn how to resample or resize graphics to about 600 pixels in width before attaching them to an email.

This will greatly reduce download time.30. Never open an attachment from someone you don't know.31. Be sure your virus, adware and spyware programs are up to date and include scanning of your emails and

attachments both incoming and outgoing.32. It is better to spread multiple attachments over several emails rather than attaching them all to one

email to avoid clogging the pipeline.33. Make sure the other side has the same software as you before sending attachments or they may not be

able to open your attachment. Use PDF when possible.

To, From, CC, BCc, RR, and Subject:

34. Only use Cc: when it is important for those you Cc: to know about the contents of the email. Overuse can cause your emails to be ignored.

35. Don't use Return Receipt (RR) on every single email. Doing so is viewed as intrusive, annoying and can be declined by the other side anyway.

36. Include addresses in the To: field for those who you would like a response from.37. Include addresses in the Cc: field for those who you are just FYI'ing.38. Make sure your name is displayed properly in the From: field.39. Remove addresses from the To:, CC; and BCc: field that don't need to see your reply.40. Always include a brief Subject. No subject can get your email flagged as spam.41. Think about your motives when adding addresses to To:, CC:, BCc. Use your discretion.42. Never expose your friend's or contact's email address to strangers by listing them all in the To: field. Use

BCc:!43. Make sure when using BCc: that your intentions are proper. To send BCc:copies to others as a way of

talking behind someone's back is inconsiderate.

Email Forwarding

44. Don't forward emails that say to do so--no matter how noble the cause may be. Most are hoaxes or hooey and may not be appreciated by those you send to.

45. If someone asks you to refrain from forwarding emails they have that right and you shouldn't get mad or take it personally.

46. When forwarding email, if you cannot take the time to type a personal comment to the person you are forwarding to--then don't bother.

47. Don't forward anything without editing out all the forwarding >>>>, other email addresses, headers and commentary from all the other forwarders.

48. If you must forward to more than one person, put your email address in the TO: field and all the others you are sending to in the BCc: field to protect their email address from being published to those they do not know. This is a serious privacy issue!

49. Be careful when forwarding email on political or controversial issues. The recipient may not appreciate your POV.

Email and Perception, Privacy, Copyright

50. Choose your email address wisely. It will determine, in part, how you are perceived.51. Try not to make assumptions when it comes to email. Always ask for clarification before you react.52. Posting or forwarding of private email is copyright infringement -- not to mention downright rude. You

need permission from the author first!53. Even though it isn't right; emails are forwarded to others. Keep this in mind when typing about emotional

or controversial topics.54. When there is a misunderstanding by email, don't hesitate to pick up the old fashioned telephone to

work things out!55. Know that how you type, and the efforts you make or don't make will indicate what is important to you

and if you are an educated courteous person.56. If you forward an email that turns out to be a hoax, have the maturity to send an apology follow up email

to those you sent the misinformation to.57. When filling out a contact form on a Web site, do so carefully and with clarity so your request is taken

seriously.58. If a friend puts your e-mail address in the To: field with others you do not know, ask them to no longer

expose your address to strangers without your permission.

Business Email

59. Think of your business email as though it was on your business letterhead and you'll never go wrong!60. If you cannot respond to an email promptly, at the very least email back confirming your receipt and

when the sender can expect your response.

61. Emailing site owners about your product or service through the site form is still spam. Ask them if they want more info first!

62. When replying to emails always respond promptly and edit out unnecessary information from the post you are responding to.

63. Formality is in place as a courtesy and reflects respect. Assume the highest level of formality with new email contacts until the relationship dictates otherwise. Refrain from getting too informal too soon in your email communications.

64. Never send anyone an email they need to unsubscribe from when they didn't subscribe in the first place!65. Be very careful how you use Reply to All and Cc: in a business environment. Doing so for CYA or to

subtlety tattle can backfire and have your viewed as petty or insecure.66. When replying to an email with multiple recipients noted in the To: or Cc: fields, remove the addresses of

those who your reply does not apply to.67. Never send business attachments outside of business hours and confirm that the format in which you

can send can be opened by the other side.

IM, Blackberry

68. With IM and Chat, try not to be overly cryptic or your meaning can be misread.69. Use Instant Messaging (IM) for casual topics or informational briefs. IM is not the place for serious topics

or confrontational issues.70. Start by always asking if the person you are IMing is available and if it is a good time to chat. Refrain from

IMing during meetings or when your attention is required.71. Practice communicating briefly and succinctly.72. Use IM for casual topics or informational briefs. Serious topics are not for IM.73. IMing is not an excuse to forget your grade school education.74. If you are not a smooth multi-tasker, do not continue multiple IM sessions and leave folks hanging while

you communicate with others.75. Learn how to use the features of your IM program. Specifically your "busy" and "away" message

features.76. Never IM under an alias to take a peek at friends' or associates' activities.77. Take into consideration who you are communicating with to determine the acronyms and emoticons that

should be used - if at all.

Email and Blogs, Forums, Message Boards

78. Keep in mind when in newsgroups or message boards that you are in a global arena. Read the charters and rules - before you post.

79. When discussions get out of control; don't stoop to name-calling or profanities. You are better than that!80. Keep your signature file to no more than 4-5 lines.81. Keep commercialism to no more than a link at the end of your comment or contribution.82. Stay on topic and discuss issues only relative to the thread/topic in question.83. If new to the message board, "lurk" for awhile to get a feel for the community and personalities of the

regulars before you post.84. Never give out personal information or specifics to your location on message boards.85. Keep in mind there will always be differences of opinion. Try to remain objective and not personalize

issues.86. Don't fall for trolls. Trolls are folks who will post rude comments just to get a rise out of everyone.87. Be sure to down edit, or remove any part of the post you are replying to that is no longer necessary to

the ongoing conversation.

Email Considerations...

88. Before getting upset because you perceive someone didn't respond, check to see if their reply was inadvertently deleted or sent to your Trash or Junk folder.

89. With emotionally charged emails, wait until the next morning to see if you feel the same before clicking Send.

90. Feel free to modify the Subject: field to more accurately reflect a conversation's direction.91. When it comes to your email communications, know who you can trust; trust only those you know.92. Take the time to review each email before clicking Send to ensure your message is clear and you are

relaying the tone that you desire.93. Never use an old email to hit reply and start typing about an entirely new topic.94. Regardless of how noble a forwarded email may be, don't just forward without investigating its

authenticity @ Snopes.com.95. Always add the email addresses of Web sites and new contacts immediately to your approved senders or

address book so they get through Spam filters.96. Before completing a Web site's Contact form; make an effort to review the site to be sure the

information you seek is not already available.97. Take a quick look at the e-mails in your Trash before you delete them just in case a good e-mail landed

there by mistake.98. If any email states to forward to all your friends, or just 5 people -- do everyone a favor and just hit

delete!99. Don't mass e-mail people who didn't ask to be on your personal "mailing list".100. Double check that your adware, spyware and virus programs are set to automatically update at

least once each week so the software knows what to protect you from.101. And finally... Type unto others as you would have them type unto you!

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5 Basic Email Etiquette for Entrepreneurs – Can you stop using Gmail Please?

1. Do not use Gmail/Yahoo for Official Purpose

If you are in a serious business, why not use your business id? If you want to be

taken seriously, do yourself a favor by using your company domain id.

It hardly takes a few minutes to configure the same in Google apps.

2. Make the subject Line clear

What’s the most common subject line, if you ask me?

‘Hi’

Use your subject line as a pitch. You only have few seconds to gain a

VC/customer/partner attention and I suggest you to use the subject line in the

smartest manner.

Maybe you would like to use that as an introduction, or to talk about your

service – but do ensure that you go beyond regular Hi.

3. Actionable Emails?

There are two kind of emails. One that converts into actionable point , and the

other that goes nowhere.

Spot the difference.

“Please let me know when can we talk.”

vs

“How about a call, say 5 PM today?”

Which one will lead to better conversion? Which one puts a pressure on the

receiver to respond?

Send emails that have a strong ‘call to action’ component. Force the

other guy to act.

4. Read Receipt?

Do you really need one? Is that a professional thing to do? We receive many

emails that expects read receipts. Apart from the fact that they are irritating

(are you spying on me?), they look unprofessional and should be avoided.

Best place for such senders is the Junk folder. Period.

5. Use Gmail/Internet Email

Contradicting point #1, use Gmail/Internet email for all things personal.

Your official email is for official purpose and keep your personal email id for

personal purpose. Always remember that your professional dealings can be

used as an evidence in any legal case and last thing you would like to see is

to officially say ‘Dumb F**ks’ about your users.

How to Handle Nasty Emails?

What do you do if you receive a nasty email from a customer/partner? Reply in

full steam? Tell them how they suck badly and you don’t give a damn to who

they are/what they do? That you don’t need them and they can eff anywhere?

Hang on. One of the most important lesson I have learnt over the last few years

is to not reply to nasty emails immediately, especially if its from somebody who

matters (business partner/potential customer).

Take a deep breath. Take a walk. Go for a smoke. Do whatever that helps you

unwind a little bit. In some cases, simply calling up the other person is better

than carrying the conversation over email.

Email is a great communication device and will continue to remain so (atleast

for businesses), but do not take that as a discussion device. It’s a tool and

serves as a means to achieve a much bigger goal.

Of course, I am not covering the basic professional etiquette here (i.e. no

CAPS, avoid wrong spellings etc).

Entrepreneurs needs to understand that when they are sending an email to a

VC/customer/partner, email is not just a communication medium but is more of

a pitch.

So use that effectively.

What’s your opinion? Add your experience/insight.

Before you create your email policy

Before you start creating an email policy, do some investigation into already existing company policies, such as guidelines on writing business letters, access to confidential information, personal use of the telephone systems and sexual or racial harassment at work. It is important that your email policy is compatible with your company's existing policies. You will also need to decide whether your company is going to allow personal use of the email system, and if so, to what extent.

The email policy should be drafted with the help of human resources, IT and board of directors in order to reflect all viewpoints in the organization. It is also advisable to have several employees look at the policy and provide their feedback. Make sure that your policy is not so restrictive that it will compromise your employees' morale and productivity.

What should be included in an email policy?

For the policy to be effective the document should use clear and simple wording and not be longer than 3-4 pages. You cannot expect employees to read a long complicated document, since you want them to remember what it says. List short bullet points, so that an employee can easily find rules in case they are unsure.

Commercial: guidelines on how to write effective emails

Corporate email style (formal/informal). This could include guidelines on salutation and ending of messages.

What kind of signatures should be used, i.e. should signatures include company name, job function, telephone & fax number, address, website and/or a corporate slogan.

Basic rules on how to write email messages. See email etiquette rules.

Expected time in which emails should be answered. For example, you could set a general rule that each email should be answered within at least 8 working hours, but 50% of emails should be answered within 4 hours.

How to determine which emails should receive priority. When to send cc: or bcc: messages and what to do when you receive them. How and when to forward email messages and how you should handle forwarded

messages.

Productivity: rules on the usage of the email system

Whether personal e-mails are accepted and if so, to what extent. For instance you could limit the amount of personal emails sent each day, or you could require personal emails to be saved in a separate folder. You could also limit or eliminate certain email attachments from being sent or received, and include rules on sending chain letters. Include examples and clear measures taken when these rules are breached.

Use of newsletters & news groups. For instance you can require a user to request permission to subscribe to a newsletter or news group.

Warn users that they should not engage in non-business activities that unnecessarily tie up network traffic.

Legal: prohibit inappropriate email content and warn of risks

Include a list of 'email risks' to make users aware of the potential harmful effects of their actions. Advise users that sending an email is like sending a postcard: if you don't want it posted on the bulletin board, then don't send it. (For more information about the legal risks of email, visit this website all about email disclaimers)

The policy should expressly state that the email system is not to be used for the creation or distribution of any offensive, or disruptive messages, including messages containing offensive comments about race, gender, age, sexual orientation, pornography, religious or political beliefs, national origin or disability. State that employees who receive any emails with this content should report the matter to their supervisor immediately. Furthermore, mention that employees should not use email to discuss competitors, potential acquisitions or mergers or to give their opinion about another firm. Unlawful messages, such as copyright infringing emails should also be prohibited. Include examples and clear measures taken when these rules are breached.

If you are going to monitor the content of your employees' emails, you must mention this in your email policy (In most countries/states you are allowed to monitor your employees' emails if your employees are made aware of this). Warn that employees should have no expectation of privacy in anything they create, store, send or receive on the company's computer system and that any of their messages may be viewed without prior notice.

Finally, include a point of contact for questions arising from the email policy.

Publishing the email policy

When you have formulated an email policy, you should make sure that all employees are aware of the policy. You can do this by handing out printed copies, publishing it on your intranet and including it in staff handbooks. Also, when a new employee starts at your company, this employee should be given a copy of the document as standard.

It is a good idea to include the most important points of the email policy in the employment contract, so that employees must sign that they have read, understand and acknowledge receipt of the policy. Cover the most important issues in the employment contract, such as the personal use of email, possible email monitoring, and the prohibition of defamatory, sexual and racist remarks in emails. Also expressly state that breach of these rules can lead to termination of employment.

Furthermore, you could organize email trainings to explain the email risks to users and why the email policy is so important. If users understand the potential threats, most of them will understand why the rules need to be set up and will have less difficulty in applying them. A training will also help you obtain feedback to ensure that the policy is feasible and can actually be put into practice.

Updating the email policy

Since developments in email and the Internet are changing rapidly, it is important to review the email policy at least once every quarter. Keep an eye on new developments in email and Internet law so that you are aware of any new regulations and opportunities. When you release new updates, it is preferable to have each user sign as acknowledgment of their receipt of the policy.

Enforcing the email policy

Finally, when you have created your email policy, you must monitor your emails to ensure that your users keep to the rules. Email monitoring tools can help you accomplish this. For more information on the legaility of email monitoring, read this article by Red Earth Software.

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Business Email Etiquette Basics

“There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified

by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.”

- Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) American Educator.

When it comes to your business e-mail communications, you need to make an impression that can lend to the

determination that you are a credible professional enterprise and someone that will be easy and a pleasure to do

business with. You only have one chance to make that first impression which will be invaluable to building trust and

confidence.

The Business E-mail Etiquette Basics You Need to Know

Below are the key Business Email Etiquette issues that need to be considered with every commercial e-mail sent.

These are the issues business owners, their employees and Netrepreneurs need to be aware of in their day-to-day

online communications to ensure the best possible results.

Professional Behavior on the Job: Know that how you use your e-mail, company e-mail address and

employer’s technology is a serious issue! Sending non-business related e-mails, jokes, forwards or chain letters

on company time to friends or coworkers reflects on your lack of professionalism. Visiting Web sites that are

questionable or not necessary to your job responsibilities will reflect poorly on your ability to be trusted. Never

assume that these activities are not being monitored. While on company time do not assume you have any

privacy when using company resources and equipment.

SUBJECT: Field: The SUBJECT: field is the window into your e-mail and can many times determineeven if your

e-mail will be opened. If this is an initial contact with a customer based on their request through your site or

otherwise, be sure to have a short SUBJECT: that indicates clearly what the topic of the email is. Typos, all caps

or all small case can lend to the impression you may be spammer.

Level of Formality: Try to avoid the prevailing assumption that e-mail by it’s very nature allows you to be

informal in your business e-mail. Only time and relationship building efforts can guide when you can

formalize your business relationships and therefore your e-mail’s tone. One should communicate as if your e-mail

is on your company letterhead at all times. This is your business’s image you are branding!

Addressing: How do you address your new contacts? I would suggest initially that you assume the highest level

of courtesy: Hello, Mr. Anderson, Dear Ms. Jones, Dr. Osborne, etc. Until your new contact states, “call me Andy”

or “you can call me Diane”. You will also be able pick up clues on when you can address have a more relaxed

tone by how contacts approach you as well as how they sign off. Most business people do not mind being called

by their first name, however, in a global economy that can be perceived as taking premature liberties in the

relationship if used too soon.

TO:, From:, BCc, Cc fields can make or break you:…In the TO: field make sure you have your contact’s name

formally typed. John B. Doe – not john b doe or JOHN B DOE…In the FROM: field make sure you have your full

name formally typed. Example: Jane A. Jones. Not: jane a jones or JANE A JONES. The later two give the

perception of lack of education or limited experience with technology. By only including your first name or e-mail

address you are giving the perception you may have something to hide or do not know the basics of configuring

your e-mail program.

…BCc: use this field when e-mailing a group of contacts who do not personally know each other. By listing an

arm’s length list of e-mail addresses in the Cc or TO fields of contacts who do not know each other or who have

never met is conducive to publishing their e-mail address to strangers. This is a privacy issue! With those you are

forging partnerships with, visibly listing their e-mail address in with a group of strangers will make one wonder

what other privacy issues you may not respect or understand.

…Cc: Use this field when there are a handful of associates involved in a discussion that requires all be on the

same page. These business people know each other or have been introduced and have no problem having their

e-mail address exposed to the parties involved. If you are not sure if a business associate would mind their

address being made public, ask!

Reply to All: Use this button with discretion! You need to carefully think about whether “all” really need to be

aware of your reply to conduct business. Never use this button to CYA or eTattle on a coworker or colleague —

doing so will just make you look petty while increasing others e-mail volume unnecessarily.

Formatting: Refrain from using any formatting in your day-to-day business e-mail communications. Unless you

would type something in bold crimson letters on business letterhead, don’t do it when e-mailing for commercial

gain. With all the spam filtering going on today; the more formatting or embedded images that higher the chance

that your e-mail could be blocked as spammy.

Even something as simple as using a different font makes your e-mail’s display contingent upon the recipient

having that specific font on their system or it defaults to their designated default font. Keep in mind the recipient

may not have their e-mail program configured in such a way as to display your formatting the way it appears on

your system – if at all.

Attachments: How do you think your relationship with a potential new customer/contact is enhanced when you

send them that 10M Power Point presentation they didn’t request and you fill up their inbox causing subsequent

business correspondence to bounce as undeliverable? And, if they do not have Power Point, they wouldn’t be

able open the file anyway! Never assume your potential customers have the software you do to open any file you

may arbitrarily send.

If you need to send a file (or combination of files) over 500,000 in size, business courtesy dictates you ask the

recipient first if it is O.K. to send a large file. Next, confirm they have the same software and version you do and

what is the best time of day to sent it to them to ensure they are available to download the large file and keep

their e-mail flowing. Never send large attachments without warning, on weekends or after business hours when

the recipient may not be there to keep their inbox clear.

Using Previous E-mail for New Correspondence: If you want to give the perception of lazy, find a previous e-

mail from the party you want to communicate with, hit reply and start typing about something completely irrelevant

to the old e-mail’s subject. Always start a new e-mail and add your contacts to your address book so you can add

them to a new e-mail with one click.

Down Edit Your Replies: Do not just hit reply and start typing — that’s called top posting. Editing is a skill those

you communicate with will appreciate as it lends to reflecting a respect for their time and clarity in your

communications. Removing parts of the previous e-mail that no longer apply to your response including e-mail

headers and signature files removes the clutter. By making the effort to reply point by point keeps the

conversation on track with fewer misunderstandings.

Common Courtesy: Hello, Hi, Good Day, Thank You, Sincerely, Best Regards. All those intros and sign offs that

are a staple of professional business communications should also be used in your business e-mail

communications. Always have a salutation and sign off that includes your name with every e-mail. Here again –

think business letterhead.

Courtesy also includes that you make the effort to communicate as an educated adult. Type in full sentences with

proper sentence structure. Not all caps; not all small case. Proper capitalization and punctuation are a must! You

are an educated professional and need to communicate as such. All caps or all small case smacks of either lack

of education, tech/business savvy — or laziness. None of which is positive for instilling confidence or encouraging

others to want to do business with you.

Signature files: Keep your signature files to no more than 5-6 lines to avoid being viewed as egocentric. Limit

your signature to your name, Web site link, company name, and slogan/offer or phone number. Include a link to

your Web site where the recipient can get all your contact information from A-Z – that is what your site is for. Do

not forget to include the “http://” when including your Web site address within e-mails and your signature file to

ensure the URL is recognized as a clickable URL regardless of the user’s software or platform.

Respond Promptly: You should do your best to respond to your business communications as quickly as

possible. This is a customer service issue that should not be underestimated. By not responding promptly you

appear unorganized, uncaring or worse yet, risk being outperformed by your competitors who understand the

importance of appearing efficient and on the ball.

There you have it! These very important issues will certainly allow your business communications to rise above the

majority who do not take the time to understand and master these issues.

When forging new business relationships and solidifying established partnerships, the level of professionalism and

courtesy you relay in your business e-mail communications will always gain clients over the competition that may be

anemic, uninformed or just plain lazy in this area.

When it comes to business, regardless of mode of communication used, professionalism and courtesy never go out

of style!

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