Email etiquette and privacy issues

Branding sometimes extends into emails, especially where customer experience is concerned. I saw an email recently that I can't unsee, so I thought it might be informative to say that emails are private communications. Whether they are business or personal communications, they are, as the legal line says, solely intended for the people they're sent to. To be clear, if you want to forward an email to keep the context of something said intact, you can ask permission to forward it, saying to whom. At the very least, cc the person/people you're forwarding it to.

People thoughtlessly share stuff in emails that they shouldn't. There are unintended consequences (such as broken trust) when what was believed to be a private conversation goes public, even if it's in an internal setting.

It's helpful to consider that anything you write in an email might be passed to someone else before sharing inside-the-office knowledge. Or personal impressions that might be more appropriately discussed in a phone call. 

So if you're about to forward an email just so your person can see what someone else said, it's a good idea to hit pause and think about it. And the next email you write, maybe take a moment to reread it as if it's being tweeted in real time. Even if it's not newsworthy and no one on social media would care, it can create mistrust and damage your personal brand.