E-mailing Visible Addresses

Is is O.K. to e-mail an e-mail address visible on a Web site? That depends.

If you are e-mailing questions in regard to the Web site’s topic, service or product, that is fine - that is why the e-mail address is there. However, if you are sending them e-mail about something you can commercially gain from that they did not specifically ask you to send them, then no. That is considered Spam.

Same goes for that long list of e-mail addresses you see in the To: field from an Irresponsible Forwarder. Because the Sender was inconsiderate of their contact’s privacy or not tech savvy enough to know to use the BCc: field, does not mean you have the right to e-mail all those folks. You don’t hit Reply to All. You don’t add them to your business mailing list of announcements they didn’t ask for.

If they are strangers; only reply to the Sender if you have something to say. To which you may want to mention their lack of courtesy in exposing all their contact’s addresses to folks they don’t know. Shame on them!

Always take the time to edit out any visible e-mail addresses if you feel the need to forward the very same e-mail to your friends. Whenever you see that there is a list of e-mail addresses of folks you don’t know whether in the To: field or body of the message, the onus is then on you to do the right thing and delete all those addresses before exposing them further.

Putting an arm’s length list of your contacts in the To: field making those addresses visible to folks they don’t know, will increase their spam. Do us all a favor, learn to use the BCc: and have respect for other’s contact information by protecting it as if it were yours and using it appropriately.

Typing “Hi!” in Forums is Bad?

Since when!? Recently a site visitor wrote that they had been rebuked because they used introductory salutations in their Forum postings (e.g. Hi, John! or Hi, Everybody!). This person was confused because they believed they were being nice and wondered if there are rules about Forum usage that forbid the use of introductory salutations? What about signing off?

My reaction was that of surprise that one would be rebuked for offering the courtesy of a greeting. What type of forum is that!? And to be rebuked for including a little pleasantry in your post? I’d have to move on to a forum run by nicer folks!

Forums generally have their own rules or charters that they want folks to abide by. I’ve never heard of one that considered the courtesy of a greeting a negative issue — enough to formally rebuke a participant. I really cannot imagine why that would be a problem.

In addition, signing off is always a nice thing to do. Most forum software has a Signature File feature built in so you don’t have to type your sign-off with every post. Both greetings and salutations set the tone of the post and allow you to reflect your personality - neither of which I find issue with. A little extra courtesy and personality never hurt a discussion, whereas lack of either can set a tone for misunderstandings and unclear communications.

Personally, I would rather participate in discussions where folks take the time to offer such formalities/courtesies than not.

Signature File Legal Statements

A site visitor writes:

I’m looking specifically for guidance regarding disclaimers which I’ve seen after a signature file. These generally include 2-3 lines about ensuring that the email is received only by the intended recipient and sometimes a bit about virus protection being the responsibility of the recipient.

The virus statements are sometimes appended by the sender’s virus software as the e-mail is being sent. I get a kick out of the statements that infer that if their e-mail contains a virus they are not responsible.

As far as the other disclaimer statements, those are just company’s and individuals trying to CYA (cover their butt). There is a Web site out there that covers the legal aspects of e-mail and disclaimers. They state right on their site:

“There is no disclaimer that can protect against actual libelous or defamatory content. The most a disclaimer can accomplish in this respect is to reduce the responsibility of the company, since it can prove that the company has acted responsibly and done everything in its power to stop employees from committing these offenses.”

http://www.emaildisclaimers.com

But the bottom line is, if an e-mail goes to the wrong person–whose fault is that? The Sender’s for sending to the wrong address by not paying attention. If someone forwards an e-mail to a third party without the sender’s permission, which folks do all the time, that it a copyright issue and they can remove the disclaimer easily anyway.

I have an article that covers online copyright issues–which is what those disclaimers are pretty much trying to facilitate that you may find helpful:

http://www.netmanners.com/online-copyright-myths.html

No Nothing E-mails

Today I received an e-mail from one of my less amiable clients. I am typing about this today to use this as a perfect example of how e-mail is a relationship building tool. A tool that can be misused and underestimated in it’s power of how you will be perceived.

This particular client has always been demanding, insulting and in some cases presumptuously rude. So, add that established tone based on past phone and e-mail conversations, when you get an e-mail like the one I received to day, it does nothing to improve the situation. Rather it solidifies the already negative attitude that I have that causes me to groan when I see their name in my inbox.

With this particular message today, there was nothing in the message — only an attachment that was a Word doc that had nothing in it other than an embedded graphic. No Hi or Hello. No explanation of what they wanted me to do — I was to assume the attachment spoke for itself.

Nor did they feel the need to include a “can you check this out and explain or advise?” No thank you in advance — no nothing. Because all the e-mail included was an attachment, it was identified as spam by my filters and sent right to my trash.

This is why I always recommend you review the e-mails in your trash before deleting. E-mails get sent there erroneously all the time due to those who see no need to take the time to communicate with clarity and courtesy.

The approach this client continually uses comes off as demanding and terse. There is nothing else to indicate otherwise. That’s where taking the time to include all the little courtesies I type about come into play.

And, if the e-mail had included all those little things this person didn’t want to take the time to include, I probably would have already replied. Instead, since I just found it in my trash, it goes into my “To Do” folder behind those who do include all those little things this person finds unnecessary.

The ironic thing about the e-mail in question is this individual is probably assuming that the issue at hand is something that is at fault on this side (per their usual assumptions) or something we can control or “fix.” When in reality there is nothing I can do, other than to explain what is going on so that when they run into this situation in the future they know who to send an empty e-mail to next time.

Next Page »