Many business-based web users could benefit from some education in ‘netiquette’, according to a recent snapshot survey by recruiter Crone Corkill.

The survey revealed how 52% of secretaries and PAs believe that email has made business communication less formal and consequently less professional. One PA explained: “I don’t appreciate getting kisses in an email from someone I have never met.”

It found that 15% of the PAs questioned knew of incidents where emails had fallen into the wrong hands.

The research found that the top five ‘netiquette’ complaints are: informality, bad spelling and punctuation, flagging routine e-mail as urgent, omitting to put anything in the e-mail subject header and receiving e-mails with long threads of previous correspondence.

Tracy Durrant, managing director of Crone Corkill, says: “There is a fine line between being friendly and polite and being too informal. Usually, the individual can judge the situation well enough to know how to communicate effectively but being too informal can give a less than professional image.”