A customer recently asked us a question that raises some interesting points when individuals use personal accounts such Hotmail or Yahoo for business-related emails: “When is it OK to use a personal email for business purposes?”
The short answer is never, but individual proprietors, consultants, can often revert to “personal” email accounts. The smart ones will set-up a secondary account that reflects their business or business name (virtually all service providers, i.e. folks like Verizon, Comcast, etc. include the ability to create several email accounts at no additional charge).
For larger businesses, the inherent risks along with general availability of mobile email should be enough to preclude using a personal email account for business purposes. If for example that user is out-of-the-office, they should be able to access their office mail from a smartphone or computer, and this is a far better route than simply resorting to their personal email account. [Read more…] about The business risks of using personal email accounts