6.1. There is a new behavior behind every technical asset

Electronic mail was one of the very first I nternet-based communication tools and its conception reflects the prevailing sense of community at that time, during the 1970s. It is not a robust system featuring strong security mechanisms.

This is why both the e-mail envelope and the e-mail body are easy to manipulate and modify. Practice shows that users take advantage of (and abuse) the opportunities available for altering both the envelope (list of recipients, time stamp, sender’s address, etc.), and the content (erroneous or truncated quotations, time stamp of received messages, etc.).

Langford [LAN 96] mentions that “what is ethically appropriate must reflect what is technically possible” and it turns out that the technical characteristics of e-mail offer a practically unlimited area for all sorts of unethical behaviors, starting from sending “harmless” jokes that flood a company network and up to organized crime, or from a sheer waste of time and up to friendly, or aggressive, spam.

It should be noted that the users’ lack of experience with this relatively recent communication tool has brought about new behaviors that are sometimes inappropriate for a modern company, in which interpersonal communication plays a central role, and where flattened hierarchy patterns, peer networks and horizontal collaboration are predominant and they require that all stakeholders including leaders, managers, colleagues as well as clients, partners or suppliers acquire new communication skills.

A question then arises. Does a lack of experience explain and justify all these new behaviors? Is failing to learn new tools, particularly when used for professional purposes, ethically reprehensible while this may not necessarily be the case from a legal perspective? And, all things considered, what is the point of bringing ethics into discussion when dealing with a subject as trivial as electronic communication or e-mail?

At this point it may be worth recalling several fundamental notions, before proceeding further with the study of new behaviors that have emerged from ICTs and their ethics-based evaluation.

6.2. Ethics and Information and Communication Technologies

Ethics provide the tools that anyone can use in order to discern desirable courses of action and behaviors or to put it differently, though perhaps in a simplistic manner, to discern between good and bad behavior. From this perspective, theoretical and pure ethics is the favorite playing field for philosophers and theologians, and has its roots in various philosophies and religions.

As we are concerned with professional communication, the following five fundamental elements are worth noting:

• – Ethics refers to a set of behaviors, i.e. actions, rather than thoughts, emotions or feelings.

This is particularly significant in the professional environment. Let us consider the example of an employee who during a break uses his office computer to surf the Web. His behavior is perfectly acceptable to the extent that his employer (who probably provides the equipment that is used for private purposes) accepts it.

While browsing the Internet, the employee may consider the opportunity offered by a content sharing site to download a copyrighted work (image, film, software, press article, etc.). Can such behavior be considered ethical?

In fact, contemplating potential action does not lie within the scope of ethics. Only the decision to act and the eventual final behavior shall be taken into consideration at the moment of ethical evaluation.

• – Action or behavior needs to be voluntary.

Action performed under compulsion cannot be subjected to ethical analysis. Furthermore, as Aristotle noted in his Eudemian Ethics [ARI 94], “all the things that he (a man) does in ignorance, and through being in ignorance, he does involuntarily” (Book II, Chapter 9, p. 3).

Many users of electronic mail sin by ignorance, lack of knowledge of the tool they have at their disposal. This being the case, even though their action is involuntary, due to their ignorance, it is still important to determine whether this ignorance is the result of their own negligence or, for example, of flawed company policy. It is worth mentioning here the exciting debate on how professional behavior deviates from personal ethics. To put it differently, is the same ethics guiding our actions in both our private and professional life?

• – Ethics refers to how we treat one another, and how we treat common and shared resources.

Showing respect, empathy, trying to understand others, and make oneself understood, building a healthy work environment, all these are considered ethical behaviors. As we note elsewhere, electronic communications paradoxically tend to isolate the individual as they separate him from the “absent other” through the intermediary of an artificial interface. This isolation also blocks the feelings of respect for others.

Taking one’s (fair) share of common resources, such as Internet bandwidth for example, rather than abusing it simply because it is available for free, is also considered “good” behavior.

Private use of equipment or remunerated time dedicated to personal activities should be included in this category of behaviors that may not comply with ethics. And for symmetry reasons, the same applies to the pressure exerted (or perceived as such) on employees to get them to read messages or answer phone calls outside of normal working hours.

The importance of these elements becomes obvious when they are compared with aspects described in section 3.2, in relation to role-shifting in the digital world.

• – Ethics varies with culture (including philosophy or religion).

Something deemed acceptable in one culture may be perceived as unethical or even illegal in another. Behavior is considered legal if it complies with the laws in force in a jurisdiction (national territory, for example). Behavior is considered ethical if it complies with the moral rules shared by a community (culture, philosophy, religion, nation, etc.).

In our collective societies, what is illegal is generally considered contrary to ethics [ARI 08]. The opposite does not readily follow, as what is legal is not systematically considered ethical. For example, despite being legal in most countries, many consider that employee electronic surveillance is contrary to ethics [MIL 00].

It is worth noting here that several difficulties are inherent to two aspects, namely legality and ethics, when it comes to applying them to electronic communications, and networks such as the Internet.

On the one hand, how should jurisdiction and applicable law be defined in the case of transnational networks? On the other hand, given that space-time distances have been replaced by idiosyncratic distances, and opportunity-based communities vary over and over, which community should be considered when looking for moral rules that are shared by all members?

• – Ethics evolves with technological progress.

It is from this perspective that the link between the (new) features of electronic messaging systems and the (new) behaviors made possible by these features should be clarified.

Thus, when applied to information and communication technologies, the scope of ethics should take into consideration the potential impact of the actions to be evaluated. As the notions of distance, space and time changed, so did the scope, and the potential impact of our actions.

6.3. Glossary of misuses and some of their consequences

What then are the behaviors that disrupt e-mail communication? We are setting up a “list of don’ts” that includes the main abusive or negligent behaviors, either voluntary, or accidental, which can at times, and at our expense, transform a high performance professional communication tool into an instrument that exposes us to highly time-consuming information overload and stress.

Bashing

Please see Flaming.

Power flaunting

Power flaunting is manifested when a sender explicitly reminds e-mail recipient(s) that, being invested with power within the organization, he or she may exert it (on all or some of the recipients) in order to put the respective recipients under pressure.

This behavior qualifies as a type of online threat and, if recurring, it can be considered cyberharassment. In a professional context, this can be reported as a form of moral harassment.

In most organizational structures such behavior is harmful as it evokes (military style) management methods that belong to the past, and that are no longer considered among modern management methods. Nevertheless, due to the economic crisis and particularly to the job market decline, power flaunting is increasingly present.

There are numerous cultures in which this practice is deemed insulting, and contrary to ethics even though, being identified as moral harassment, it remains unfortunately legal.

Power flaunting is, thus, a form of hostile spam.

Ambiguity

There is ambiguity when the sender has deliberately drafted the message in a confusing and obscured (therefore ambiguous) manner in order to induce delays, generate confusion or mislead the recipient(s).

The sender of such a message would, in general, subsequently pretend that his message was “crystal clear” and he was not aware of any lack of clarity or possible ambiguity.

Delays are generally due to the recipient asking for clarifications, when confronted with the misunderstandings generated by deliberate ambiguity. In most cases this additional exchange helps the sender gain time (whatever the reasons), and this may prove significant, for example, when sender and recipient are located in different time zones. It is obvious that additional exchanges increase the number of sent and received messages (with multiplier effect for multiple recipients), which leads to information, and mail overload.

Ambiguous messages are a typical form of friendly spam: they are unsolicited (and equally useless) messages. If ambiguity proves to be harmful for the recipient, then it may be considered hostile spam.

Nigerian Scam

Please see 4-1-9 Fraud.

Spamming

Please see Broadcast.

Bacn

Electronic mail users often subscribe to mailing lists that reflect their interests at a given moment. They continue to receive the messages sent by these mailing lists though their interest fades away in time. They stop reading the received messages either because they find them tiresome or because their field of interest has shifted, or even because the message content does not meet their expectations anymore.

These messages are conventionally called bacn. The term “bacn” derives from the word “bacon”, in reference to the term “spam”, which was also the name of a food product (canned ham produced by Hormel, a Texas-based enterprise).

They are not really spam since the user has accepted (and even requested) to receive them. They are, however, not as useful or well perceived as ordinary personal electronic messages. According to the “official site” dedicated to bacn (www.bacn2.com), bacn is e-mail you want, but not right now.

This is the reason why bacn is considered a type of friendly spam, even though it is generated by the recipient’s negligence.

Jokes

Further down in this glossary one entry refers to humor. Jokes are a special type of humor. People usually like to share good jokes with their friends, and the Internet and electronic mail servers have proved to be a convenient means for sharing jokes with contacts in their e-proximity.

But some users tend to abuse this user friendliness and send jokes either as isolated sources or as contributors to Internet message chains, which are messages relentlessly sent from one contact list to another throughout the connected planet.

The fact that some jokes may be harmless does not justify sending them to the professional e-mail addresses of colleagues or friends. While telling jokes during a coffee break or during the breaks and meetings outside the office is acceptable, sending a joke to a colleague’s e-mail address is a way to address the wrong role.

Messages containing jokes are a typical form of friendly spam.

Botnet

Please see Infection.

Breach of confidentiality

While colleagues’ curiosity may be a matter of incivility, this explanation is not valid for attacks against companies that store in their large databases private and confidential information referring to their members or clients.

Large scale criminal hacking has recently resulted in theft of data on tens of millions of records, with the purpose, in most cases, to resell this data to less scrupulous companies. Such attacks are conducted on a nearly daily basis [LEM 15].

This is obviously a matter of being prepared to deal with fraudulent spam.

Address munging

Address munging is a practice used for altering one’s e-mail address, in particular when this address is published on a website, in order to avoid it from being harvested by automated systems used by spammers for collecting addresses on the Internet. A typical example of address munging is writing “firstname(dot)name(at)domain(dot)com” instead of “[email protected]”. While the “false” address is not (easily) detectable by an automated system, it remains perfectly intelligible to human beings, who can easily convert it into the correct address.

Though it is a form of masquerade, many users consider munging a method that protects them against commercial spam.

“Cc:”

The Cc: (or Bcc:) fields were designed for the input of additional addresses when messages are sent to secondary recipients. These fields are the direct transposition into electronic form of carbon copies and confidential copies used in traditional written correspondence (mail correspondence, notes, etc.). They are so easy to use in electronic mail (there is no need to print additional copies, to prepare additional envelopes, etc.) that some senders have come to abuse them.

The lists of Cc: recipients are often used within organizations as a means to exert pressure on the recipients. They are indicative for the lack of respect and poor quality of professional relations among persons using these methods.

Typical examples include messages that have as a secondary recipient the immediate superior of the recipient(s) (for example, the superior receives a carbon copy of the message). The instances when such copies are used to publicly congratulate the intended recipients are rare. The purpose is more often to exert pressure on the recipients or to discredit them in front of their superiors. In such cases the sender is considered to play an inappropriate role. For example, a colleague (peer) censors or blames the recipient, taking over the role of the superior, who is carbon copied.

A superior may publicly use power flaunting in relation to several subordinates by including colleagues or other stakeholders in the list of secondary recipients when sending negative messages (accusations, bad performance evaluations, etc.) to these subordinates. The superior, thus, publicly “forces” the carbon copied recipients to share the role of censors (or superiors), as involuntary witnesses of public sanction.

In most cultures such behavior is perceived as a sign of (the sender’s) immaturity, lack of professionalism (one should refrain from publicly exerting pressure or giving negative evaluation of a colleague), and lack of self-confidence (sender “dares not” have a face-to-face discussion with the main recipient and uses the illusive protection offered by this means of communication to express his opinion).

This behavior is, in many cultures, deemed harmful and is penalized. It is perceived as hostile spam. If recurrent, it is considered a form of cyberharassment.

Chain messages

A chain message or letter is a form of correspondence that invites recipients to send a copy of it to as many persons as possible. These messages are, in general, harmless and filled with “good intentions” (for example: “Today is the international friendship day. Send this message to all your friends and tell them how much they mean to you.”) Superstition can also be called into play (for example: “This works! Those who sent this message to 10 friends received good news the next day. Those who didn’t do it received bad news. Don’t delete this message! Forward it to your friends!”) Finally, some chains may contain jokes.

These chain messages are a form of friendly spam.

Some chain messages can be part of pyramid systems (such as The Airplane Game) and have financial purposes (getting money from the recipients). In several countries these pyramid schemes are illegal.

The latter types of chains are fraudulent or hostile spam.

Misquote

A recipient engages in misquoting when, for whatever purpose, in an attempt to transform the message received, he alters it, and uses part of it without clearly indicating the modifications (deleted, replaced or added parts).

It is a practice used by those who try to take credit for someone else’s work, for example a “good” idea, a piece of information, a positive result, etc. When some elements of the received message are taken out of the original context, this practice may also be used to discredit the sender of the initial message.

Misquote often goes hand in hand with forgery, which consists of altering the metadata (envelope) of a received message.

The appropriate behavior during e-mail exchanges is to clearly indicate that a message was modified by using suspension points (…) or brief clarifying notes.

Messages containing misquotes are a form of hostile spam.

Click and rush

Some users of electronic mail lack the patience required to wait for a reply to their message and have a need to immediately find out the recipient’s reaction. Click and rush describes a situation when the author of a message (physically) rushes into the office of the recipient or calls him almost immediately after having hit the “send” button, generally invoking as an excuse the need “to check that the recipient has correctly received the message” and eventually to discuss it as soon as possible.

This behavior may reflect a (possibly cultural) specific attitude towards time, and in particular the sender’s misunderstanding of the asynchronous character of electronic mail as a means of communication designed to give the recipient the time to read the message when he chooses to do so. However, it indicates a certain haste, high levels of stress and strong time constraints.

This behavior disrupts the recipient’s time schedule and his “normal” way of managing tasks. Such disruptions sap the recipient’s concentration, and may lead to otherwise avoidable overload. Furthermore, they may be perceived as a lack of respect from the sender (as a disruptive factor). In most cases, they reflect the lack of experience in managing electronic mail.

This behavior and the messages associated with it are considered friendly spam.

Gossip

We all know what gossip is. In the context of the present discussion, the problem is the use of electronic mail to relay gossip. While there is a good chance that gossip cannot be avoided during coffee breaks, one should consider that electronic mail involves written content, and all the messages can be stored, relayed and disseminated.

When it comes to gossip, besides ignoring it completely, one should be advised to avoid using electronic mail to this end.

Gossip (through electronic mail) is a form of friendly spam.

Confusion

Confusion arises when the recipient of a message (deliberately) feigns incomprehension of the message content (while the opposite is true).

This behavior and ambiguity are symmetrical. While in the case of ambiguity, a sender voluntarily writes a message that lends itself to several possible interpretations, in the case of confusion the recipient pretends that the received message can be subjected to various interpretations and, therefore, asks the sender to provide (additional) clarifications.

As the sender needs to revise his initial message or find an alternative means of communication to make himself understood (provided that the recipient ends up admitting that he understood a subsequent message), this can generate overload, and time constraints. We have noted above that in order to induce a recipient to act, one uses language (and messages). Some recipients may invoke (feigned) confusion as a reason for lack of reaction to a message, and subsequently pretend they did not understand that they were supposed to take action…

If, rather than remaining silent, the recipient asks for explanations or clarifications by electronic mail, the exchange that follows is a form of friendly spam.

Tactless curiosity

Some tactless colleagues may be tempted to take a look at someone else’s correspondence, either on the screen or on a printed copy (…) accidentally found on the shared printer in the corridor. While in most cases this is plain, harmless curiosity, this type of behavior may cause an inappropriate breach of confidentiality.

The situation is entirely different when it comes to services that can access, by the nature of their tasks, their colleagues’ correspondence and messages. This is in particular the case of IT departments that manage the company’s servers. While public agents in charge of operating telecommunication networks (they still exist despite the sector-wide privatization of this type of services) are under oath, and pledge to preserve confidentiality of correspondence, a minority of organizations have implemented adapted policies, and directives.

Please see (E-mail) Surveillance also.

Cyberbullying

In recent publications, cyberbullying is considered synonymous with cyberharassment. However, according to a different trend in literature, this term should be used exclusively when both the harasser and the victim are children or minors.

This is a form of hostile spam.

Cyberharassment

Cyberharassment is the use of electronic means to harass individuals (or organizations). If recurrent or combined, several behaviors described in this glossary (in particular hostile spam) can be considered cyberharassment.

Online debate

Online debate describes a situation in which participants initiate an electronic mail discussion that goes on “for too long”, that is well after having realized that the subject of the debate should have been approached through a different means of communication (telephone, face-to-face conversation, meeting or videoconference, etc.).

As we have noted above, electronic mail is not a means of communication well suited for approaching complex questions, particularly because of the inherent risk of misunderstanding. It also proves to be less than satisfactory when approaching questions that have high emotional charge, simply because it is difficult to convey emotions through electronic mail appropriately. Finally, from a communication quality perspective, participants who do not know each other well are advised to refrain from engaging in online debates. There is a risk that the debate will degenerate into online conflict, which may pose serious problems for the company.

Online debate is a source of numerous messages, comparable to chat for example. It can also increase Internet traffic, particularly when other recipients are carbon copied or discussions are joined by several participants, when conflicting messages overlap, etc.

Given the number of messages it can generate, online debate can be considered a source of friendly spam.

Denial of receipt

Denial of receipt describes the situation of a recipient pretending that he has not received the message while in reality the opposite is true.

This behavior is often employed in order to protect the recipient in a difficult situation, when, for example, not having received the message may serve as an excuse for his failure to achieve a task or follow an instruction. This may indicate an attempt to gain time or avoid embarrassment. In more serious cases, such as cyberharassment, the recipient adopts this behavior and pretends to be subjected to unfair treatment. The recipient then accuses the sender for having abusively omitted him or delayed the message, for example, by deliberate omission from the mailing list.

Even though denial of receipt does not in itself generate spam, it is unscrupulous behavior employed in the use of electronic mail, and may seriously affect the professional environment (and produce a large number of messages resulting in debate, flaming, etc.).

Flaming

Flaming consists of publishing or sending offensive (aggressive, insulting) messages to other users in an attempt to denigrate, discredit or humiliate them, usually in public. In most cases such messages are posted on discussion forums, and even sent by e-mail, adding to a series of aggravating and inflaming messages.

Though usually aimed at deliberately hurting another person, these messages may often result from an involuntary escalation of online discussions, particularly during debates. Should the moderators become aware of such exchanges, especially when they are conducted on the intranet, they should act swiftly in order to end the conflict between colleagues.

Flaming may also refer to a situation when an employee joins a discussion forum outside the organization, engages in debates with third parties, or on social networks. The image of the entire organization may be at stake in this case and prompt intervention is essential. Within Internet communities, users who keep on sending offensive messages in order to disrupt discussions and threads (in particular on discussion forums) are qualified as trolls.

The situations, in which such messages are repeatedly sent (for instance, among colleagues), reveal a degree of obstinacy, and these messages are a form of cyberharassment.

Obviously, flaming messages are a type of hostile spam.

Broadcast

As we noted above, electronic messages can theoretically be sent to an unlimited number of recipients. According to proper use of electronic mail, messages should only be sent to the concerned recipients. A situation qualifies as broadcast when someone sends a message to too many recipients, including those having only a slight interest in the message content (the common term for this is “spamming”.)

This behavior on behalf of the sender reveals a lack of self-confidence or poor understanding of the organizational chart and functional roles. He sends the message to all “possible” contacts to make sure that it will reach those who are, in fact, concerned. It also shows a lack of respect for his correspondence: he does not care to know whether they are really interested in the message. Finally, due to the large number of messages sent, this practice leads to saturation, both in terms of number of persons affected, and in terms of computer resources needed for managing additional traffic and storage space.

Broadcast is a form of friendly spam. For an example of broadcast of a thank-you message, please see Document 6.1 (note the worldwide mailing list that the sender and one of the recipients use).

(Harmful) Address disclosure

Harmful address disclosure applies to an individual disclosing someone’s e-mail address to cause him harm, for example, by subscriptions to online newsletters or advertising websites, which would generate large quantities of spam, and eventually lead to that person’s inbox becoming unmanageable.

Referring to communication in a professional context, practice shows that inside organizations there are internal conflicts and competition. Address disclosure may be used as a technique to exert additional time pressure on the victims who, unless adequately prepared to cope with spam and information overload, would eventually be overwhelmed.

This behavior is clearly contrary to ethics, and qualifies as hostile spam. If recurrent, it is considered a form of cyberharassment. In several countries, besides being contrary to ethics, this behavior is illegal, and considered a criminal offence.

Sent by mistake

Anyone who uses electronic mail may accidentally send a message to the wrong recipient. But here we refer to deliberately sending or forwarding an embarrassing message to several recipients in order to harm a third party (often a peer or subordinate), and subsequently pretend it was sent by mistake (not that anyone would believe it…). The “malicious” sender would rather pretend the message was fast forwarded than admit it was mistakenly or deliberately sent.

This example of potentially unethical (and embarrassing) use of electronic mail should be a reminder to all users that this modern communication tool is based on written text and messages can at any time be stored, retrieved, archived and forwarded. Extreme caution is therefore recommended when drafting an electronic message and selecting the recipients.

Organizational politics may elicit behaviors that are contrary to ethics. One is well advised to know the rules of the game and the allies in the internal political game.

Messages that are deliberately sent “by mistake” are considered a type of hostile spam.

(E-mail) Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy applies to a situation when someone, being submerged by an enormous quantity of e-mails, considers that the only solution is to empty the inbox. The user may, for example, delete all the messages and (preferably) inform all senders accordingly.

While informing the senders that their messages have been deleted is considered a sign of respect, it can also be perceived as a blunt approach: senders are informed that not only were their messages not read, but even worse, they were definitively deleted.

Electronic mail bankruptcy may be due to e-mail saturation as a consequence of spam. Bankruptcy may also generate friendly spam as additional correspondence (when the victim informs his correspondents about the deletion of their messages, or when the senders address new messages asking for a reply to previous messages).

Forgery

Forgery is the general term used when the user of electronic mail deliberately alters metadata (message envelope). In most frequent cases, the sender alters the information included in a received message before reusing it and forwarding it to the next recipient(s), in an attempt to deceive them. Various elements can be altered, among which are the date and time when the initial message was sent (and received, when outgoing), the original author, for example the message sender, the subject or the list of recipients of the initial message. In general, forgery is used in combination with misquote, which consists of altering the content of a message received.

Forgery is extremely immoral. It is generally used in conflicts inside organizations or in the cover-up of professional errors. Nevertheless, it can be difficult to detect, as the average user does not have a sound knowledge of the mechanisms employed to alter a message and does not systematically check the metadata in a message.

4-1-9 fraud

The 4-1-9 fraud (also known as the Nigerian scam) is a type of deception that takes advantage of gullible and greedy e-mail users. It generally involves a message that promises the recipient a significant amount of money provided that the victim pays money upfront (after exchanges of messages and forged documents).

While most users never reply to such messages, a small minority do and so the fraud is lucrative, to the extent that it impacts millions of users.

The 4-1-9 fraud is a form of hostile spam. It is, obviously, an illegal behavior. Please see Document 6.2.

Grammar

Should grammar be listed among the ethical questions regarding electronic mail?

While for some users e-mail communication is a mere extension of speech, others continue to consider it a form of official written communication. Moreover, we have noted that electronic mail, as a text-based means of communication, is prone to misunderstandings. It is in this context that good grammar can be considered a way to ensure the maximum possible level of message clarity and intelligibility, while grammar errors may cause misunderstandings.

There are cultures in which grammar mistakes may be interpreted as a lack of respect for the recipient, a sign that the sender does not really care about the quality of communication with his correspondents.

For these reasons poorly written messages are considered a form of friendly spam.

Phishing

Phishing is a type of fraudulent masquerade whereby the victim receives a message that is similar to the normal messages usually sent by trustworthy financial institutions such as banks, postal services or public organizations. These messages generally feature forged Internet links that are supposed to direct the victim to the site of a well-known institution, while in reality they direct (or redirect) the user to a site entirely controlled by the fraudulent organization or individual.

The aim is to get the victim to provide confidential information such as user name and password that would be used for malicious purposes, and cause financial damages to the victim.

Phishing is a type of hostile and fraudulent spam (see Documents 6.3 and 6.4).

Humor

Humor is a difficult and sensitive subject. While some cultures consider that humor is part of their heritage, others perceive it as contrary to ethics, and even immoral. Pierre Desproges, a famous French humorist, is known to have said: “One can laugh at anything, but not with everyone.” What may be humorous in one culture may be considered hurtful in another. An individual’s humor may be hurtful to many others.

Organizations, especially modern and international ones, are often multicultural, multiracial, multiconfessional, etc. It is, therefore, advisable to be cautious with humor. When it comes to gossip, it is recommended to avoid using humor in electronic messages, as they are stored and archived, can easily be retrieved, and forwarded as well as disseminated to undesired recipients.

Jokes are a special form of humor.

If not properly used, humor can be classified as friendly spam.

Incorrect identification

Incorrect identification describes a situation when an individual deliberately provides a false address to a correspondent in order to avoid (or slow down) ensuing communication.

Though such behavior may seem contrary to ethics, many Internet users think that some incorrect identification may protect them against abusive data harvesting. These users create “false” e-mail addresses that they use for web surfing or subscribing to certain online services, in order to direct the commercial spam generated by the sites visited or online services providers (such commercial spam is unfortunately very common on the Internet) to the “false” account instead of their e-mail account.

Let us take the example of Jean Dupont, a user whose regular e-mail address is [email protected]. To avoid exposing himself, he could create another address, such as [email protected]. The use of this latter address for online subscriptions would allow him to have a “spam inbox” and, thus, avoid mistreatment.

Therefore, even though this behavior may be considered contrary to ethics in inter-company communications, it is an appropriate reaction to commercial spam, and a means to protect role boundaries.

Masquerade

Masquerade describes the behavior of an individual who uses another person’s e-mail account without asking for permission in order to mislead the recipient(s) into believing the message was sent by the account holder. The situation in which a user manages to modify the metadata in his message so that it looks like it has been sent by another user (that is from another e-mail account) is called e-mail spoofing.

In some countries, masquerade is illegal being considered identity theft.

Indifference

The progress of electronic communications has allowed for a new form of power flaunting: indifference. This behavior manifests itself in “cold” messages stripped of emotions, which employees receive from their employer. These messages carry information that is crucial for their career, such as a job transfer or layoff.

According to traditional management procedures, this type of information should only be provided in person, during a face-to-face meeting. The advent of electronic communications has permitted human resources management and decision centers to remain in the e-proximity of employees, though they are not always located in their geographical proximity. Physical distance encourages this type of behavior, and the employee receives an electronic notification referring to his status, rather than being offered the possibility of being personally notified in the presence of his direct superior.

These messages are considered contrary to ethics, and a sign of poor management (because they reveal poor internal communication and social dialogue). They too are a type of hostile spam.

Infection

Infection is generated when a message carrying viruses is sent endangering the integrity of the recipient’s hardware and software.

In general, in the context of professional communications, viruses are not deliberately propagated, therefore, this behavior cannot be considered contrary to ethics. Neglecting to check one’s correspondence is, however, contrary to ethics, and can also prove extremely expensive. This is why regularly checking for viruses is important, not only for computer safety reasons but also as a form of respect for ones’ correspondents.

Infected computers are widely used by professional spammers, particularly by those in trade, as relays for sending spam, as illustrated by Figure 6.1. In stage 1, a cybercriminal infects several computers that are named zombies. In stage 2, the infected computers are connected to a communication system (without their owners knowing), and form a network of infected computers (named a botnet). In stage 3, a professional spammer buys access to the botnet from the cybercriminal. In stage 4, the spammer provides the message to be sent to the botnet. In stage 5, zombies send the spam to a large number of electronic mail addresses.

NOTE.– Figure 6.1 is reproduced according to the GNU Free Documentation License designed by the Free Software Foundation.

In the context of our research, this type of message qualifies as commercial spam.

Interpretation

Electronic mail interpretation is, perhaps, the most important and difficult task, and it often entails misunderstandings.

As we have noted in previous sections, senders usually perceive their messages as more positive than they are in reality, while recipients think the messages received are more negative than they really are.

Appropriate (ethical) behavior should respect the following principles: firstly, the sender should make sure that his messages are as positive as possible, showing respect and attention to the recipient, and that they are perfectly clear, leaving no room for interpretations or misunderstandings; secondly, the recipient should be as open as possible to the message, trusting in the sender’s good faith and willingness to cooperate with him, which will lead to a positive interpretation of the electronic mail.

Spoofing

Please see masquerade.

(Abusive) Omission

A sender commits an omission when he deliberately omits a correspondent from his list of recipients.

This is a practice prevalent in competitive environments, when information that is essential for mission accomplishment is shared by stakeholders, and one or several of them are intentionally excluded. Abusive omission is considered a form of power flaunting. In effect, the sender abuses his position by deliberately omitting to share available information with one person.

When such a situation happens and it is revealed, the person responsible would generally claim that his act was not deliberate, and thus, cannot be subjected to ethical evaluation. If recurrent, this conduct is considered a type of hostile spam and cyberharassment (even if it generates no message, therefore, no spam).

Weekend catch-up

Many employees (managers included) have made a habit out of taking the weekend to keep their overloaded electronic correspondence up to date. This behavior is encouraged by features specific to electronic mail, due to which organizations allow their employees to access it from home. However, some organizations try to discourage this practice that blurs the boundary between professional and non-professional roles and undermines work-life balance.

Moreover, while this conduct may indicate that the user is a victim of electronic mail overload, it could also be considered contrary to ethics or inappropriate because the employee tends to send many electronic messages during weekends. This behavior could encourage his colleagues and other correspondents to in turn check their inboxes during weekend. This could lead to an overflowing inbox, and is a guarantee of difficult Monday mornings.

This is why weekend catch-up may become a source of friendly spam (when electronic mail is not sent in due time).

Thank you

Some users find it important to send thank-you messages in reply to certain messages, either to confirm that a task has been accomplished, to provide important information, or just send a simple electronic mail. This type of user tends to abuse the thank-you messages and, generally, sends them to all recipients. Such messages usually have the same effect as reply to all.

This behavior is indicative of the sender’s ignorance of the role of electronic mail, and the consequences of e-mail overload.

Thank-you messages are a type of friendly spam.

Reply to all

The reply to all button permits us to reply to all the previous recipients of a message. This feature is offered by most electronic mail software. Reply to all is a simple way to decide (or not) who will receive a message, which offers, the previous sender in the thread, a choice.

When under time constraints, users do not hesitate to use this function to speed up the exchange. While this practice may perfectly fit under certain circumstances, it may prove useless in many communication situations.

It is recommended to always pay attention to the list of recipients. An economical use of reply to all is a sign of respect for (potential) recipients and it also avoids multiplying messages. Every message sent to n recipients generates n messages instead of one. If all n recipients replied to everyone, this would generate n² messages, and the numbers would rapidly grow out of control. Abusive use of reply to all feature is a source of additional traffic, and can lead to individual inbox and server saturation.

Reply to all is considered a form of friendly spam.

(Message) Delay

Delay applies to the situation of a sender who deliberately delays sending a message in order to deprive the recipient of urgent information, and consequently cause him loss of opportunity, embarrassment, loss of credibility, etc.

In general, the sender would afterwards pretend that the recipient (who did not receive the message) was informed in due time, and the delay may have been caused by server failure, or any other cause outside his control. In more serious conflicts or cyberharassment situations, the sender may even accuse the recipient of denial.

Meeting request

Organizing meetings and setting up dates and times that are convenient for all the attending participants have always been time consuming. It used to involve getting in contact repeatedly, finding various solutions and proposing them, checking availability, etc. The contacts were made over the phone.

At present, most electronic mail software features an embedded scheduling assistant tool for meetings and meeting requests. When used inside an organization (same electronic mail server and same company network), this system manages the meeting requests in such a manner that all the expected participants’ agendas can be viewed by the meeting organizer. The latter can, thus, readily see the dates and times that are convenient for all the participants, choose the available time slot, and include the meeting request on all participants’ agendas.

However, rather than using this modern system, many electronic mail users have simply replicated the “good old methods”, and have replaced telephone calls with e-mails that are usually sent to all expected participants. This tends to generate an exponential increase in messages, which may rapidly become unmanageable.

Using electronic mail for meeting requests is a typical form of friendly spam.

Sarcasm

Sarcasm is usually easily detected in face-to-face conversations, when emotional signals are conveyed by the speaker’s verbal (tone of voice) and body language. Participants in a conversation can grasp irony, sarcasm or humor and, when a speaker is using such language to express an opinion, they would not take it literally.

When used in a message, sarcasm is affected by the fact that electronic mail is not fit to convey the non-verbal signals that are essential for the interpretation of the core message.

It is, therefore, wise to avoid sarcasm in electronic mail as it can lead to misunderstanding.

Silence

Silence describes a situation in which an individual deliberately refuses to reply to others’ communications (for example, electronic messages) in order to offend the senders, or simply ignore their (justified) requests. This is all the more insulting when the non-responding recipient subsequently pretends to have in fact replied.

Silence is the new version of the classical refusal to collaborate or communicate with one’s colleagues. However, due to the specific nature of electronic communications, this conduct may be perceived as even more annoying than the traditional attitude, which is already challenging enough.

(E-mail) Surveillance

ICTs offer new means for monitoring employees’ use of computer systems and electronic mail, all received or sent, electronic correspondence being stored on the company’s servers. This poses the risk that tactful employers or employees (IT services personnel, for example) may be tempted to violate the right to a private life of their employees or colleagues.

Fast forward

Fast forward refers to the situation of a thread (series of messages on the same subject) participant who forwards the whole content of a message (including history of the conversation that can be viewed in the lower part of the message, and should not be communicated) to a third party, for example a recipient who was not participating in the thread.

This action may be performed deliberately or by mistake, and it can trigger embarrassing situations if someone (a client, for example) should have been notified of the result of a discussion (acceptable discount on a product or service), but not of the discussion content (discount justification, opinion on the respective client’s importance, opportunity to claim a higher price, quality of competitors’ products, etc.).

There is a risk that the message sender and the many recipients (usually not the main recipient) feel embarrassed, or have their reputation or credibility undermined. The organization as a whole may incur damages due to the disclosure of inside (and possibly confidential and essential) information.

The instances when such behavior is deliberately enacted are generally restricted to internal communications, when, for example, a colleague uses this stratagem to inform “by mistake” other colleagues (or superiors) in the organization.

Troll

Please see Flaming.

Identity theft

Identity theft involves an individual using someone else’s account and acting with hostile intentions. When it happens in electronic mail communication, identity theft, generally, takes the form of masquerade.

With the development of online services and applications, identity theft has become a serious problem. One particular type of identity theft is synthetic identity theft, which consists of creating a false identity. This phenomenon has been quite frequent since the deployment of social networks.

Not only is such behavior immoral, but in several countries is also illegal. Fighting this problem is a means to retaliate against organized crime and promote cybersecurity.

Zombie

Please see Infection.

6.4. Conclusion

Our behavior as electronic mail users differs from one person to another. It may also be true that no user is “guilty” of all the behaviors described in this glossary.

Nevertheless, our research has shown that it is possible to identify typical profiles that present subsets of these behaviors. We shall present them in the next chapter.