The rules of civil society apply equally to all conduct, including that carried out with email. Whatever you would consider unethical in life is also unethical in email. For instance, if lying is unethical, so is lying in email.

Holly Beach, Louisiana, October 3, 2005: Power poles lean precipitously along Highway 27, which borders the Gulf of Mexico in lower Cameron Parish. Thousands of poles were either leaning or fallen due to Hurricane Rita's powerful winds. Although these are power poles, one can imagine the poles that carry the cables that make up the Internet, metaphorically drooping under the weight of all the email we send, much of it worthless. Photo by Win Henderson of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Somehow, though, it seems easier to cross the line in email than it does elsewhere in life. Your own values determine where the line is for you. To find your own line, try these on for size:
- Denial
- If you claim not to have read or received a message when you actually have, you're over the line.
- Disclosing someone else's email address for harm
- If you subscribe someone else to a newsletter, hoping to flood him or her with unwanted junk, you're over the line.
- Abusive omission
- If you intentionally omit someone from a To list for purposes of harm or harassment, you're over the line.
- Misidentifying yourself
- If you supply a false email address just to get someone out of your hair, you're over the line.
- Faking a mishap
- If it's unethical in real life,
it's unethical in email - If you broadcast an embarrassing message to cause harm to someone, intending later to claim that you sent it for FYI or by accident, you're over the line.
- Dragging your feet
- If you intentionally delay sending a message so as to deprive the recipient of time-critical opportunities or information, intending later to claim that you did in fact inform the recipient, you're over the line.
- Silence
- If you choose not to reply to someone so as to give offense, you're over the line. Even worse if you later claim that you did reply.
- Misrepresenting a quote
- If you excerpt a previous message, and alter it in any way other than to indicate deletions, you're over the line. Acceptable indications of deletion are replacement by ellipsis (…) or <snip>, or inserting short phrases in brackets for clarification.
- Pleading false confusion
- If you claim not to understand a message, when you actually do, so as to cause delay, you're over the line.
- Intentional ambiguity
- If you write a message ambiguously — to slow things down, to cause confusion, or to mislead — with the intention of later claiming, "Gee, I thought it was clear," you're over the line.
- Wandering eyes
- If you read other people's email without permission, either at their desks (whether or not they're present), or by any other means, you're over the line. Except, of course, if it's part of your job.
- Forgery
- If you edit the headers in an excerpted or forwarded message so as to misrepresent the time, date, author, subject, or routing of the message, you're way over the line.
- Masquerade
- If you send email from another's account without permission, for the purpose of deceiving someone, pretending that you're the owner of the account, you're over the line.
Most of us have been tempted to cross the line now and then. Next time you feel the temptation, imagine how it would feel to receive such a message. No doubt, whether you know it or not, you already have. Top
Next Issue
Are you so buried in email that you don't even have time to delete your spam? Do you miss important messages? So many of the problems we have with email are actually within our power to solve, if we just realize the consequences of our own actions. Read 101 Tips for Writing and Managing Email to learn how to make peace with your inbox. Order Now!
And if you have organizational responsibility, you can help transform the culture to make more effective use of email. You can reduce volume while you make content more valuable. You can discourage email flame wars and that blizzard of useless if well-intended messages from colleagues and subordinates. Read Where There's Smoke There's Email to learn how to make email more productive at the organizational scale — and less dangerous. Order Now!
Do you have an addition to this list? Send it to me.
Your comments are welcome
Would you like to see your comments posted here? rbrentSgXnAlNVWlhxNIJner@ChacAtZoEYrrmofzZnjPoCanyon.comSend me your comments by email, or by Web form.About Point Lookout
Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and
found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.
This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.
Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.
Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.
Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.
Related articles
More articles on Ethics at Work:
Approval Ploys
- If you approve or evaluate proposals or requests made by others, you've probably noticed patterns approval
seekers use to enhance their success rates. Here are some tactics approval seekers use.
Telephonic Deceptions: II
- Deception at work probably wasn't invented at work. Most likely it is a continuation of deception in
the rest of life. But the technologies of the modern workplace offer new opportunities to practice the
art. Here's Part II of a handy guide for telephonic self-defense.
More Things I've Learned Along the Way
- Some entries from my personal collection of useful insights.
On Repeatable Blunders
- When organizations make mistakes, they sometimes acknowledge them and learn how to avoid repeating them.
And sometimes they conceal them or even deny they happened. When they conceal mistakes or deny they
occurred, repetition is more likely.
Personal Boundaries at Work
- We often speak of setting boundaries at work — limitations on what we can reasonably ask of each
other. We speak of them, but we don't always honor them. They can be easier to remember and honor if
we regard them as freedoms rather than boundaries.
See also Ethics at Work and Ethics at Work for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming April 2: Mitigating the Trauma of Being Laid Off
- Trauma is an emotional response to horrible events — accidents, crimes, disasters, physical abuse, emotional abuse, gross injustices — and layoffs. Layoff trauma is real. Employers know how to execute layoffs with compassion, but some act out of cruelty. Know how to defend yourself. Available here and by RSS on April 2.
And on April 9: Defining Workplace Bullying
- When we set out to control the incidence of workplace bullying, problem number one is defining bullying behavior. We know much more about bullying in children than we do about adult bullying, and more about adult bullying than we know about workplace bullying. Available here and by RSS on April 9.
Coaching services
I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrentSgXnAlNVWlhxNIJner@ChacAtZoEYrrmofzZnjPoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.
Get the ebook!
Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:
- Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
- Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
- Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
- Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
- Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
- Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )
Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info
Follow Rick





Recommend this issue to a friend
Send an email message to a friend
rbrentSgXnAlNVWlhxNIJner@ChacAtZoEYrrmofzZnjPoCanyon.comSend a message to Rick
A Tip A Day feed
Point Lookout weekly feed
