Language and vocabulary trends with email

 My last three posts have dealt with email intercept. As a pause to this series, this brief blog gives a summary of the growth of email and iterates the need to utilize good Netiquette.

Email has proliferated at a rate few could have foreseen. One hundred forty-four billion (144,000,000,000) emails were sent daily, resulting in more than 52 trillion 560 billion emails in 2012 (Royal Pingdom Tech Blog, January 16, 2013), and the count is growing significantly each year. Despite all of the tools and capabilities technology has contributed to provide better content and communication, proper Netiquette and its requisites havedeclined as quickly as volume and technology have proliferated. Even more alarming is that a huge number of acronyms, abbreviations, and English (or native language) shortcuts are becoming standardized in even the most formal communications.

Websites, dictionaries, and lists that focus on these new terms are also growing and competing with traditional reference work websites. Seemingly, many users are more interested in learning new acronyms, terms, and phrases. With the lack of standards committees, words are spelled numerous ways, others take on new meaning or characteristics, and still others are alternately presented in upper- and lowercase. Even spell-checkers can be different in their spelling of certain words.

At best, the application of email slang does not help writing in traditional English with correct grammar, structure, or Netiquette. A single error in an email can ruin highly stylized content or a highly structured tone.  For all of these reason mentioned above, the need to maintain clarity, good content and proper Netiquette are essential as the quantity and dependency on email grows.

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If you found value in this blog, please reference it in your social media network!

We will be publishing a book on Netiquette shortly entitled "NetiquetteIQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". Also there will be an email "IQ" test on our website:

 www.netiquetteiq.com

There are discount coupons available on the website. There is no obligation and the savings will be up to 50%.

paul@netiquetteiq.com
Paul Babicki
paul@netiquetteiq.com
+Serkan Gecmen
serkan@netiquetteiq.com
"Good Netiquette Writing!"
#mailiq

NetiquetteIQ - Electronic surveillance by the US is not new



 

Seal of the government of the US

Again, it can be stated that Netiquette does include the possibility that emails are not private and that there is no expectation of full privacy. This should always weigh in on the utilization of one's email.

Since the details of the NSA PRISM (see my post of 6/9/2013) initiative were leaked to the press in early June, there has been a mixture of surprise, outrage and wide range of responses from "pro" and "con" perspectives. However, it was not shocking at all to those who are aware of the various laws passed since 1986 when the Electronic Communication Privacy Act gave authorization to law enforcement agencies to monitor email and other forms of electronic communications.

Summary of the ECPA

As written in Wikipedia, "email that is stored on a third party's server for more than 180 days is considered by the law to be abandoned, and all that is required to obtain the content of the emails by a law enforcement agency, is a written statement certifying that the information is relevant to an investigation, with absolutely no judicial review required whatsoever.

When the law was initially passed, emails were stored on a third party's server for only a short period of time, just long enough to facilitate transfer of email to the consumer's email client, which was generally located on their personal or work computer. Now, with online email services prevalent such as Gmail and Hotmail, users are more likely to store emails online indefinitely, rather than to only keep them for less than 180 days. If the same emails were stored on the user's personal computer, it would require the police to obtain a warrant first for seizure of their contents, regardless of their age. When they are stored on an internet server however, no warrant is needed, starting 180 days after receipt of the message, under the law.
 

The ECPA also increased the list of crimes that can justify the use of surveillance as well as the number of judicial members who can authorize such surveillance. Data can be obtained on traffic and calling patterns of an individual or group without a warrant, allowing an agency to gain valuable intelligence and possibly invade privacy without any scrutiny, because the actual content of the communication is left untouched. While workplace communications are in theory protected, all that is needed to gain access to communiqué is for an employer to simply give notice or a supervisor to feel that the employee's actions are not in the company's interest. This means that with minimal assumptions an employer can monitor communications within the company. The ongoing debate is on where to limit the government's power to see into civilian lives, while balancing the need to curb national threats". Since the ECPA, additional laws have been enacted, each providing more latitude for email monitoring. These will be topics for future blogs.

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Remember you can subscribe to receiving notifications when new blogs are posted:

http://netiquetteiq.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

If you found value in this blog, please reference it in your social media network!

We will be publishing a book on Netiquette shortly entitled "NetiquetteIQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve, Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". Also there will be an email "IQ" test on our website:

 www.netiquetteiq.com

There are discount coupons available on the website. There is no obligation and the savings will be up to 50%.

paul@netiquetteiq.com
Paul Babicki
paul@netiquetteiq.com
+Serkan Gecmen
serkan@netiquetteiq.com
"Good Netiquette Writing!"
#mailiq