Today is very easy to come by websites and domain names and there’s no excuse for professional businesses not to have their own custom email address. Free email services like Gmail, Yahoo!, and Hotmail may be tempting because they’re free, but they’re also unprofessional and can actually harm your business in terms of security.
Despite its many attractive features, using free web-based email for business purposes can have real negative drawbacks.
Here’s why you should Avoid Free Web Based Email Services for Your Business:
1. Free services are Hacker’s favourite: If you’re one of the millions of people who use a free email account, you may want to beware: hackers love free email accounts. That’s because free email accounts offer hackers a huge pool of potential targets. And once a hacker gains access to your account, they can use it to send spam and even adult content to your contacts list – which could include your clients, vendors, and business partners. So if you value your reputation, it’s crucial that you think before using free web-based emails.
2. No Privacy: Free Web-Based Email Services come with a hidden cost: Your Business Privacy. A majority of these services scan your emails via an algorithm to determine certain things about you and your business. This information is then used for targeted advertising. It could be about your interests – food, shopping, business, travel, etc. However, it does not stop there. They can also scan other emails that contain more business subjects, including your Tax, financial credentials or banking details. As a result, you may want to consider using a paid email service that offers better privacy protection.
3. Looks Unprofessional: When you use a free email service for your business, it sends the wrong message to your customers. It suggests that you cannot afford a domain name and a professional website with email. It also suggests that you are not organized or professional enough to get a domain name for your company. Additionally, free email services are often less private than paid services, so using one for your business could suggest that you are not concerned with privacy.
4. Your emails might land in SPAM: If you use a free email account for business purposes, there’s a good chance your emails will end up in someone’s spam folder. Most spam filters these days are designed to screen out free email addresses like Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo! That’s why spammers typically use free accounts to send out their emails. While there’s no guarantee that your emails will make it through if you use a paid account, it’s definitely worth a try. Paid email accounts are less likely to be flagged as spam, so your messages have a better chance of getting through.
5. Likely to miss important emails: If you are using a personal free email account for business purposes, there is a higher likelihood that you will miss an important email. This is because personal free email accounts are usually flooded with email forwards, social media updates, and a host of other spam email messages. Having a separate business email account will make it less likely that you will miss out on an important email.
6. Reputational Damage: When your staff or contractors use free email accounts such as Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail for communicating on behalf of the organization, you have no control over their accounts and contacts list. You cannot lock them out of their email accounts if you have to let them go for whatever reason. Worse, they can download all your business emails and contact lists before leaving, and use this information to damage your reputation by contacting your clients and spreading false information about your company.
In search of a privacy-focused service?
When it comes to email privacy, even giants aren’t safe. Using privacy-focused email services like Siccura Mail, Tutanato & MailBox is better than placing absolute faith in big email providers. These services protect email attachments and encrypt every file type by rendering them impregnable. Banking communications, online purchasing information, personal messages and passwords. With secure email providers, every digital syllable is recorded, stored and protected with professional-grade security.
Services like these often have a strict zero-knowledge policy across all of our products. It means they have no access to your emails, and they don’t keep records of personal details. Only you will have the key to your content. It’s time to start keeping your business email communication private and in your control.