Online Christmas to cost £154m

Take Christmas, add a related few e-cards, throw in some "general festive chit chat", and we have a recipe for 22 million lost working hours in the UK, costing medium-sized businesses alone around £154m.

So says Open Orchard, a company which predicts that personal email traffic -- already accounting for around a third of all emails -- will rise a further 28 per cent this Christmas.

What's more, the risks of sending out inaccurate contracts, unapproved quotes and competitive information apparently go up at this time of year.

Open Orchard, a BT Group business, said although in 92 per cent of businesses three-quarters of staff have email access, only 73 per cent of companies have an email policy.

Have your say instantly, and see what others have said. Go to the ZDNet news forum.

Let the editors know what you think in the Mailroom.