electronic mail address

messaging (Usually "e-mail address", rarely "e-dress",

"e-ddress") The string used to specify the source or

destination of an electronic mail message.

E.g. "[email protected]".

The RFC 822 standard is probably the most widely used on the

Internet though X.400 is also in use in Europe and Canada.

UUCP-style (bang path) addresses or other kinds of sourceroute became virtually extinct in the 1990s.

In the example above, "john" is the local part which is the

name of a mailbox on the destination computer. If the

sender and recipient use the same computer, or the same LAN,

for electronic mail then the local part is usually all that is

required.

If they use different computers, e.g. they work at different

companies or use different Internet service providers, then

the "host part", e.g. "sales.acme.com" must be appended after

an "@". This usually takes the form of a fully qualifieddomain name or, within a large organisation, it may be just

the hostname part, e.g. "sales". The destination computer

named by the host part is often a server of some kind rather

than an individual's workstation or PC. The user's mail

is stored on the server and read later via client mail

software running on the user's computer.

Large organisations, such as universities will often set up a

global alias directory which maps a simple user name such as

"jsmith" to an address which contains more information such as

"[email protected]". This hides the detailed

knowledge of where the message will be delivered from the

sender, making it much easier to redirect mail if a user

leaves or moves to a different computer for example.

(1996-10-22)