10 THINGS TO AVOID : EMAIL FAUX PAS, ETIQUETTE ET AL

Part 1 of 2

Email is so pervasive in our lives that many people, I’m sure, wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if someone pulled the Internet plug. A few short years ago, email was considered an “unreliable” delivery mechanism, meaning that if you had something of importance to say or send, you’d better use a backup plan to be sure your recipient got it.

No more. Email is routinely subpoenaed in legal cases. It’s considered in many courts to be as good as a written contract and there are several “contract” sites that rely on email for contract execution.

People now receive mail on their cell phones and blackberry’s. While some predicted that SPAM would be a major detriment to the email infrastructure, we’ve managed to handle it pretty well, both from a legislative and technical perspective.

Yet, I never cease to be amazed by what people “do” in email. Whether it’s forwarding something inappropriate or including a vast number of people on a “CC” list or replying to “all” instead of “one”…the list goes on. So, here is the current “Dave Segrove list of things to do and not to do” when it comes to email. Some are just ideas, some are common sense and others are…well, I’ll let you decide.

“DO NOTs”, “GOTCHAs” and other things(in no particular order)

1. WORK AND PLAY DON’T MIX

Do not confuse business and pleasure. In my mind, this has got to be the most ignored and fundamental “rule” when it comes to email. There are several “sub-categories” under this heading.

• Chain Emails

  I may be on your mailing list for some reason and I’m happy to be. But if my relationship with you is business-related, I do not want to see your chain emails. A “chain email” is one that you must forward to 10 or 100 people in order to get the message out, for good luck, to avoid bad luck, to sign a petition…the list goes on. SPAM still accounts for over 90% of all email traffic and chain emails are a big part of that.

  That’s not to say there is no place for some very good chain emails, but consider the recipient. Send it to your friends and family perhaps, but not your business colleagues.

• Jokes, Cartoons Etc

  I’m always amazed at the number of these I get from people I’d never have expected to. I like a good joke or cartoon as much as the next person, and if I get one from a friend or family member, that’s very different. I don’t expect (unless perhaps in rare cases) to receive these from business associates.

  Bottom line: you don’t know whether you might offend the recipient and you don’t know what that might result in.

  Many companies prohibit this sort of traffic as part of their policy, but I see it all the time.

• Pictures, Family Stories Etc

  Sorry gang, but business is business. If we’re friends, then by all means add me to your Facebook list or send me your photos or stories. As a colleague, client or vendor, I shouldn’t be copied on these.

2. DO NOT ASSUME PERMISSION

We may have communicated in the past. I may have received your business card from you in a meeting. Please don’t assume I gave you permission to add me to your mailing list. If you want to add me to your mailing list, send me an email or call me to ask.

In most cases, people are quite happy to join your list, but don’t take it for granted.

3. DO NOT BE CASUAL

If your email is business-related, keep the language thus. Don’t assume a “tone” you would not use in conversation. Email is very subject to misinterpretation, specifically because you cannot hear the voice inflexions of the sender.

4. NEVER EVER USE PROFANITY

’nuff said.

5. DON’T ABBREVIATE

Email is not texting. Sure, you may be emailing from your cell phone or portable device, but that’s your problem. Abbreviations are subject to interpretation. Don’t assume that someone will understand what TTYL or L8R means.

6. BIG ATTACHMENTS

As Internet “pipes” get bigger, so do email attachments. Unless someone’s expecting a big file, either give them some notice or find another way (FTP for example) of getting it to them. Many corporate firewalls and routers will block big messages. You run the risk of not knowing whether it was received or not. Not all email systems will tell you.

Big attachments also fill up mail boxes and may cost money in bandwidth, for either you or the recipient.

7. SHOOTING FROM THE HIP

“Flaming” is an Internet term for an attack on another. While these tend to happen in forum settings, they can happen in emails too. It’s very easy to take offense at a message, type a quick reply and hit send before you’ve had time to take a breath.

Now what?

Remember, in most cases you cannot take it back. You cannot “un-say”. If something upsets you, be careful before replying. In my case, I’ll often type up what I want to say in a word processor. That way, there’s little chance of me sending the message by accident (or on purpose). After I calm down, I can edit or delete what I’ve typed and then copy and paste it into an email.

8. IT WILL OUTLIVE YOU

Copies of email messages are stored all over the place. Don’t assume an email conversation is just between you and the receiver. Don’t send something that might come back to bite you later. Email is legally admissible in many places as evidence. Just because you deleted it from “Sent Items” doesn’t delete it from the Internet.

9. REPLY TO “ALL” / FORWARDING

This can be amusing when it happens. It can also be deadly (business-wise). You receive an email from someone who has copied a group of people. You reply with a comment intended for the sender’s eyes only. You hit “send”.

Hang on, did you replay to “all”…? Uh oh…

I received an email recently from someone who forwarded an email from someone else and I’m pretty sure that I wasn’t supposed to see the original because it wasn’t very nice. In fact, it’s what prompted this article.

Be careful when replying to messages that were sent to a group. Ditto, be careful when forwarding a message to one or more people. Is there something that wasn’t intended for general consumption in there?

10. AN ADDRESS THAT ISN’T “PORTABLE” OR APPROPRIATE

Now, this last item may be determined by your company. If you work for a corporation and use their email system, you are probably expected to send and receive work-related emails with a company address. In nearly every case, you can’t take this with you when you leave.

So, if you are using your company address for something else, you might want to stop doing so. This may be against company policy to begin with, but if you can’t take it with you, are you going to have a problem if you leave?

Use an email address suitable for your business. If you want to use AOL or GMAIL or YAHOO, then do so, but use an address that works and that is appropriate. onehotguy@[emailsystem.com] may be cool for your personal life, but does it work for your new legal practice?

So, there you have it. I’m sure there are many other things that could be on the list. As email evolves, we need to as well. It’s no longer the casual tool a few years years ago.

If you made it thus far, you have my complete admiration. This wasn’t supposed to be a novel when it started…if you email it to anyone, you might want to just send a link…I think that’s appropriate

OPTING OUT…IS IT ENOUGH?

As nearly everyone knows, SPAM is "unsolicited bulk email". However, what some people may not realize is that just providing an "opt-out" to recipients does not qualify their message as "not spam".

Many bulk email systems used for marketing require what is known as "confirmed opt-it" addresses. Simply put, this is an address that has been verified and that the recipient wants to receive messages.

In may places on the Internet, by law, an "opt-out" link must be prominently displayed, along with company information from the sender, but sending an unsolicited email with the opt-out link and company information may not be enough if the recipient did not agree to receive such messages from the sender.

As succinctly put on the SPAMHAUS.org site (SPAMHAUS is one of the places that tracks and maintains "blacklists"), "Nobody must ever be required to opt-out of anything they did not opt-in to in the first place". Furthermore, the state as their "Golden Rule" : "Never buy email addresses from another company."

As tempting as it might be to circumvent the system, ISP (Internet Service Providers) and email hosting companies as well as some government agencies are beginning to seriously crack down on SPAM and the definition of what is considered SPAM is evolving. Ignorance is no defense.

If you’re going to send bulk email, send it legitimately.

You can read more about this subject at www.SPAMHAUS.org.

By the way – their suggestion is that when you receive unwanted email, do not use the "opt out" link because it validates that someone is on the receiving end of the message (and you might end up downloading something nasty). Better to mark it as "junk" and let your spam filter take it from there.

HANDS-FREE MARKETING: HOW TO TRASH YOUR ONLINE REPUTATION WITH EMAIL

Like your credit report and other government or privately tracked information, your email address is part of your online identity. There is no short-cut to establishing a good online reputation. It’s a bigger part of your business reputation than most people think, and it’s just as easy to trash.

Here’s how:

1. CHANGING IDENTITY: I’ve seen an increase in some unscrupulous sales people changing their email address slightly, thereby fooling spam filters. In order to do this, you need to own your domain name (ie mydomain.com) and control your email addresses. You send a message as dave@mydomain.com. Because it’s spam, eventually it’s blocked by most spam filters. The following week, because someone told you it was clever and good marketing practice, you change your email to dave2@mydomain.com and send another email. Many people’s spam filters are not set to block entire domains (ie anything that comes from any address in mydomain.com). So, if you’ve seen the same person sending you emails, even though you added them to your “junk” list, that’s probably why.





2. “SPAM: Yes, the old favorite and the one that started it all. Anyone who uses email knows that spam is “unwanted bulk email”. When I define it, I take out the word “bulk”. I never ceased to be amazed that many email senders consider it “okay” to send me a bunch of crap I never wanted and call it “business to business” messages to try and avoid being labeled. I see this a lot in real estate. Some agents swear by it, the theory being if you throw enough, something will stick. I guarantee that most of those listing emails are ending up with blocked sender rules in spam filters, and both an email and business reputation are being ruined.





3. MASKING: Making your email address appear from one address when it’s actually from another. This is a favored “phishing” method and many email systems are blocking this type of email. Yet they still come in. In order to mask your address you need some technical savvy, but it’s also possible to trash someone else’s reputation with it. I found that one of my own domain names was being used by someone to send out spam. As a result, I started getting emails from spam blockers and individuals notifying me about viruses that I’d attached on emails I’d never sent. Someone had “masked” a genetic address (ie email@mydomain.com), a address I didn’t even have a mailbox for. Unfortunately, I have a “catch-all” address in case someone misspells my name, so I was receiving anything addressed to my domain. Once your domain is “blacklisted”, it’s very hard to get back…





4. "EMOTICONS" : everyone’s seen these, the little happy faces or animations that you can “download for free” and make your emails a little more special. While I’m a big advocate of “free is good”, many of these email addons come with spyware that is difficult to remove. Some of these “freebies” track messages, capture address and other information and then spam the recipients. By sending these “laced” messages, you risk spreading malware (malicious software). Finally, many of these tools increase the size of the message substantially, taking up space that the recipient may not have.





5. SIGNING PEOPLE UP WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE: This happens quite a bit. Someone conversing with you doesn’t automatically give you the right to add them to your mailing list. Many people are too polite to say anything, but they never forget…







6. JOKES, "CHECK THIS OUT" ETC: On the heels of #5 comes this one. It’s bad enough to sign someone up for your emails without their permission, but when you start forwarding jokes, prayer requests or other unsolicited (yes, spam), I think you’re out of line. Personal and business emails should remain separate. You could end up forwarding a virus, or worse still, offending someone. Haven’t you received emails that have been forwarded dozens of times? See all those other addresses in there? Ever wonder how some people get your information? I still see a lot of “if you forward this to 10 people now, you’ll get rich quick” messages from people I thought might know better. Sigh.





7. ATTACHMENTS : Big attachments take up space. Some email routers won’t even forward them. Some may contain viruses. Repeatedly sending big attachments will get you added to junk lists and might even get your domain blacklisted.





8. BCC (Blind Carbon Copy): You send an email to recipient A and blind copy recipient B. That’s okay, we all need to do this from time to time. You send an email to yourself and blind copy your entire address book. Not so smart. You may not even be aware that many email systems won’t forward emails that have too many BCC’d recipients…and they don’t tell you.

So, if you want to trash your online “street cred”, try some of the above. You should start getting results pretty quickly.

You probably shouldn’t have said that…

This post comes on heels of a comment left by someone in a previous post. My last couple of ramblings have concerned the use of electronic communication and questioned the social impact. This particular post relates to the legal.

If you’ve heard, seen or read news about several major legal cases over the past year or more, you’ll have heard that email records are increasingly being used in court. Enron was probably the first big case that came to everyone’s attention, but the use of email and other electronic records (ie instant messages), has been growing.

Many companies now include an “acceptable use” policy for their employees to sign. Somewhere in it, it mentions that the company, not the individual, owns the computers, software and data, including messages.

Most people know that email isn’t anonymous. Even if a message is sent from a site (and email address) that the recipient has never heard about, electronic forensic evidence is always present. Just because you delete something from your email (or your computer for that matter), doesn’t mean it’s gone.

Email and instant messages often traverse many different servers and routers around the web. Huge computers, switches and routers literally “hand off” a message from one to the other. Some keep parts or all of the message in their log files.

Now, this doesn’t mean that we live in a “Big Brother” world just yet, but common sense should prevail, especially when electronic communication is used for business matters. While there doesn’t yet seem to be a comprehensive, all-encompassing set of laws (at least from what I’ve seen), email, instant messages and other e-communiques are increasingly being accepted as legally binding.

There is an excellent article about this by an attorney Henry J. Fasthoff IV on lawyerintl.com (here’s the link) called “Electronic Evidence as the Smoking Gun“. While not intended to scare anyone (ditto this post), prudence should be always used and Mr Fasthoff’s post is a good cautionary tale.

Especially when dealing with business associates, clients and vendors, and even more so if your particular role is to provide advice. It’s awful to think that what you thought of as an opinion could be interpreted as “legal” advice (it’s always about interpretation, isn’t it). If anyone has stories (good or otherwise) I’d love to hear from you.

Before you hit “send”, just remember that you don’t want it to come back to bite you…

I should probably put a disclaimer on this blog entry too…