Do you regularly send out mass emails to your contacts and attaching that latest Wedding / Birthday / Graduation / Baby pictures? Are you guilty of forwarding that "cute" TV ad to your entire address book?

Well, here are some points to consider.

1. Do you really need to?
   I've always asked this question before I hit that Forward button. Does my contacts appreciate or care about the latest food trend in Japan? Email is a legitimate communication medium and the less we all abuse it, the better it'll perform.
2. Is it true?
   Snopes.com to the rescue. Please check before you forward that latest "CNN-warned" virus warning. Especially warnings about rat droppings, giant spiders (and alligators) and such.
3. File Size
   When Digital Cameras first appeared on the scene, the average resolution was 1.2MP, but fast-forward a few years, its common to find 8MP resolutions. When you email these out, they can be 3-4MB files EACH! If you send out 10 photos, you could be sending out a 40MB email and multiply that by 20 recipients and well... er.. you do that maths. Now imagine if a few of them do not have large mailboxes and say 10 of them bounces back to you. Get ready for 400MB in your mailbox!
4. Don't Spam!
   I know you're probably saying "Not me", but we're surprised at the number of people that has sent out 'marketing emails' to shared email addresses (from associates). Remember that spam is Unsolicited Commercial Emails (UCE).

We're providing this article as sort of a "Public Service". Do your ISP a favour and practice responsible email use. A lot of effort and resource is spent on keeping your email systems smooth and glitch-free.