Email address

E-mail addresses are used to deliver messages sent via e-mail to the correct recipient. An e-mail address can be obtained from an Internet access provider, after registering a domain name or through a webmail service such as GMail.

This address consists of three parts:

• A name chosen by the recipient (often the recipient's own name)
• A monkey tail (@)
• A domain name

Sample email address: naam@marketingtermen.nl.

Companies and other organizations use general e-mail addresses (such as info@domeinnaam.nl, verkoop@domeinnaam.nl and support@domeinnaam.nl) in addition to personal e-mail addresses, whose incoming e-mail is received by one or more employees.

Even the earliest precursors to the Internet, in the 1970s, included systems for exchanging messages. The first e-mail as we know it today was sent in 1971 by Ray Tomlinson. The message was sent between two computers that were next to each other, but physically connected only through the ARPANET. Tomlinson chose the asterisk as the separator between recipient and network address because in practice it would not appear in the name of recipient or the second part of the address. This was not a domain name at the time because the DNS system had not yet been invented.