What is the the proper E-mail Etiquette when forwarding business e-mails sent to you, to a third party? Do you Cc: the original Sender? Cc’ing the original sender when forwarding their e-mail doesn’t negate asking for permission. You should ask the Sender first about forwarding their written words or comments to others.
I can hear the opposition — “I don’t want them to know I am forwarding their e-mail!” Well, that tells me the Sender may not appreciate why or who you are forwarding to — which means you need to look at your motives for doing so. Otherwise, why wouldn’t you ask if it is O.K. to forward or let them know “I’ll be forwarding your email to so and so for their comment and review — is that O.K.?”
If you do not feel comfortable asking that question, you are being either an e-gossip or e-tattler! We all know people who forward other’s e-mails to others adding their comments. This type of behavior certainly isn’t professional and can easily backfire on you.
Think about it… When you send an e-mail to someone, you are sending it to them — not to anyone they want to send to or expose your commentary to. All e-mails are naturally copyright protected by the author. So in order to forward an e-mail sent to you to another person, you should get the writer’s permission to do so first.
Why not check out my Copyright Refresher article?
Some More Info for You:
![[Business E-mail Etiquette eBook]](http://www.businessemailetiquette.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/bee-2012-100x140.png)
![[Take The Email Etiquette Pledge]](http://www.emailetiquettepledge.com/ee-rev-medium.jpg)
Also, don’t forget that CC can be useful for sending the email to multiple people (friends, coworkers, and family usually) so you don’t have to keep fowarding the same email over and over again and waste your time.
Obviously it is assumed you have permission like this post says to do (and you should! It’s rude not to get permission then foward it out). Be careful though, don’t CC out to more than 4 or so people at once or else you might get flagged for “spam” by your isp or mail provider (yahoo, google, hotmail, msn, etc).
@Jamie:
Keep in mind too that if you are sending to multiple people use BCc: if they don’t know each other. Serious privacy issue there… And as you commented on another post, if you are serious about your business why would you be using Yahoo, Google, Hotmail, etc. anyway? The answer is you shouldn’t be.
You don’t need to have a Web site (although I wonder what business can survive without one) to have a domain name for e-mail. If you don’t have roughly $20/year to have your name.com or business.com for e-mail purposes, maybe you have to reconsider your business model. [Shameless Plug: I currently have domains on sale for $7.49/year on my DIY site!]
At your service,
Judith