Email rules !

E-mail is omnipresent in business and personal communications. But there are a number of pitfalls and ways to miscommunicate with e-mail.
Communicate by email is not that easy because we must respect what is called the netiquette that is all the rules relative to the net.
So let’s present what are the rules to respect and the things that must be avoided.

SPAMMING AND COMUTER VIRUSES

The usefulness of e-mail is being threatened by three phenomena: spamming, phishing and e-mail worms.
Spamming is unsolicited commercial e-mail. Because of the very low cost of sending e-mail, spammers can send hundreds of millions of e-mail messages each day over an inexpensive Internet connection.

E-mail worms use e-mail as a way of replicating themselves into vulnerable computers.

The combination of spam and worm programs results in users receiving a constant drizzle of junk e-mail, which reduces the usefulness of e-mail as a practical tool.

PRIVACY CONCERNS

E-mail privacy, without some security precautions, can be compromised because :

• e-mail messages are generally not encrypted.
• e-mail 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 your e-mail messages on their mail servers before they are delivered. The backups of these can remain up to several months on their server, even if you delete them in your mailbox.
• the Received: headers and other information in the e-mail can often identify the sender, preventing anonymous communication.

So email provides its number of difficulties but generally speaking these problems are spamming and protection of privacy. Not respecting the netiquette often implies a bad and uneffective communication.
Consequently everybody must be respectful and careful.