Digital Etiquette For Dummies

Introduction

Well, look at you. We’re proud of you for taking steps to become a responsible citizen online by learning about digital etiquette, also called netiquette. You wouldn’t be reading an actual printed book unless you wanted to sit in a comfortable chair, set your favorite beverage on the table next to you, and soak it all in.

We have a lot of good stuff to share with you to make you a better person online — and you may be surprised that you’ll see how to be a better human being here in real life. If you read this entire book, your mindset will change, and others’ perceptions of you will change for the better.

About This Book

The purpose of Digital Etiquette For Dummies is to help you communicate effectively online. The number of pages in this book has tipped you off that doing so is easier said than done. After all, we can just say that you have to be nice to people, but there’s a lot to unpack in that simple concept.

It's not just behaviors that you need to know about and refine — you also need to know about laws governing online behavior, because the wild west approach to communicating on the Internet started to disappear decades ago. That’s not just true of spam (a friendly reminder that this kind of spam has nothing to do with the processed meat you can buy) but also of data privacy.

So we start by defining etiquette in the digital age. We talk about spam and privacy laws not just in the United States as a whole but also in individual states as well as specific ...