But are we taking e-mails as seriously as our other business correspondence? Remember, your correspondence says a lot about you, and E-mail etiquette (also called netiquette) not only makes for effective professional communication, but also helps you build a good professional image within your organisation and with clients.

Mind Your Manners Be conversant with fact that there are some people who are very sensitive to being addressed by their first names. When in doubt, use Mr., Ms., Sir, Madam or Dr. (if appropriate). When you are replying to an e-mail and sender of original message has used his or her first name only, then you could safely assume it’s all right to use that person’s first name as well.

Next, there are three words in dictionary that are very important to netiquette. People may not notice these words when they’re there, but if you forget to use them, you’ll come across looking disrespectful and ungrateful. These very powerful words are “Please” and “Thank You”.

Don’t Use That Tone With Me Tone is a difficult thing to explain. Remember when your parents would say “Don’t use that tone of voice with me, young lady (or young man)?” Your feelings come across by way you say something. It is easy to change your tone when you’re speaking. When you’re writing it’s very hard to do so. Whenever you write an e-mail, you should read your message over several times before you hit send. Make sure that you come across as respectful, friendly, and approachable. And don’t sound curt or demanding. Sometimes just rearranging your paragraphs will help.

If you’re writing to someone you’ve communicated with before, you might want to begin by saying “I hope you are well.” E-mail writers often use emoticons to convey a certain tone. For those of you who don’t know what these are, emoticons are little faces made up by arranging parentheses, colons, and semi-colons. Use good judgement here. If you are writing to someone frequently and share an informal relationship, then emoticons are okay. If you’re writing to a prospective client or your boss, stick to words only. Avoid writing your message using all uppercase letters. It looks like you’re shouting.

And Your Point Would Be...? When possible, don’t ramble. Be concise and get to your point as quickly as you can. However, don’t leave out necessary details. If providing a lot of background information will help recipient answer your query, by all means, include it. You may even want to apologize for being so verbose at beginning of message.

OK, so what're these email laws?

They're Child Protection Registry laws that have been taken into effect in State of Michigan and Utah.

These laws established "Do Not Email" registries into which individuals or institutions that primarily serve minors can enter minors' email addresses or any email address to which minors may have access. Institutions or entities that primarily serve minors can also register their entire domain names.

People are prohibited by these laws from sending email to addresses that have been in registries for 30 days or more if email contains material or link to material that is illegal for minors. And it doesn't matter whether email is solicited or unsolicited, you still can't send such email.

You might think that materials must be something obvious such as pornography, gambling, alcohol, etc. Yes, but they're only part of materials.

The other part consists of less obvious stuff, namely stuff that looks fine, but might be illegal for minors because minors are prohibited by law from viewing, receiving, participating, possessing, or purchasing this stuff. This includes automotive sales, financial services such as credit card, etc.

And according to Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy, these laws apply to almost all people in United States and even those outside United States who have a physical presence in United States. (see http://www.isipp.com/child-protection-email-address-registries.php)