Email Use: Ethical and Legal Issues essay
Today, the wide use of email raises the problem of its ethically correct use because just like conventional mail, email may be offensive from the ethical standpoint and from the legal perspective.
In actuality, email are widely-used to the extent that a large part of working hours as well as personal life of individuals are wasted on reading and processing information received via email. For instance, Shippley and Schwable (2008) point out that the US office workers spend about 25% of their working time on processing emails. More important, the use of email grows at the unparalleled, fast rate. For instance, within two years from 2005 to 2007 the email traffic has almost doubled and currently it keeps growing (Shipley & Schwable, 10).
In this regard, it is worth mentioning predatory behavior, spamming, and too informal communication style, as possible manifestations of the unethical use of email. For instance, the tone of email is very important because misuse of certain tone or inappropriate tone used for emails sent to a particular user may be offensive for him or her (Shipley & Schwable, 11). In this regard, users should use similar approaches to writing email as conventional mail. For instance, they should take into consideration the purpose of email, the receive social standing, cultural background, age, position within the organization (in case of communication within an organization) and other factors which may raise ethical issues or which are essential to take into consideration to avoid sending an offensive email. Obviously, the tone of email sent to a friend will be different from the tone sent to one’s manager or supervisor.
In some instances, email may be used as a tool of identity theft and access to the private information of email’s owners. In such a situation ethical issues are closely intertwined with legal ones. For instance, the unauthorized access to one’s email may lead to uncovering personal information of users to third parties. The misuse of this information may be not just offensive ethically but also legally. Intruders can just use the personal information of the user to obtain access to his/her bank account for instance or misuse the personal information in other ways.
Nevertheless, today, email is one of the most efficient ways of the communication so far. In fact, email has a number of advantages compared to conventional mail. First, email helps to close communication gaps fast because individuals can communicate with each other regardless of the physical remoteness, while emails will be delivered in the matter of minutes, even if they are located on different continents and if they are in different parts of the world.
Furthermore, emails allow sending a large amount of information attaching files to emails. Email allows mass communication since one and the same email may be sent to multiple users that is very convenient, especially within large organization. Hence, email saves time and makes communication more effective.
Thus, email is a popular means of communication today. However, the use of email should involve the respect to basic ethical norms and standards, which are applicable to the regular communication between individuals. Therefore, users should take into consideration the background of email receivers, while writing their emails. In addition, they should take into consideration legal issues and avoid illegal behavior or behavior that may have a negative impact on other users.