Private E-Mail

There is no such thing as totally private e-mail. Any person who receives your message can send it on to any other person. Some e-mail addresses are mailing lists - these send messages sent to them to everyone on the list.

E-mail systems are starting to use encryption so the message can not be read by anyone who does not have the encryption key. The most common encryptions used are PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) and PEM (privacy Enhanced mail).