Email Disclaimers

[Alma J Wetzker]

Tom Wilson wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-05-27 at 11:49, David Bandel wrote:
> 
>>Note:  IANAL!
>>According to my understanding of the law, for one party (exception:
>>the government of which you are a citizen or the country you are
>>residing in) to impose a condition on another, there has to be some
>>kind of relationship (normally contractual, and that contract is
>>defined because there is "consideration").
>>
>>In the case of you or anyone else receiving an e-mail not meant for
>>them from a party you have no contractual relationship with, you are
>>not enjoined from doing with the contents of the e-mail as you please.
>> That said, unless you're just mean, you probably wouldn't want to
>>post embarrasing or otherwise sensitive information on a web page, but
>>the author really could do nothing about it.
>>
>>An e-mail should be thought of like a postcard.  anyone can read it. 
>>You have no expectation of privacy whatsoever.   If you want a
>>reasonable expectation of privacy, then you should encrypt the message
>>using GPG, etc.
>>
>>People that waste bandwidth with idiotic and useless disclaimers
>>should be considered in the same category as spammers.
>>
>>I welcome any thoughts/facts that would repute the above.
>>
>>Ciao,
>>
>>David A. Bandel
> 
> 
> IANALE.  
> 
> That being said, I believe you are pretty right on about that David.  I
> remember in my business law class I took someone asking a question about
> those e-mail disclaimers.  The professor stated, though there was no
> basis or precedent either way for the disclaimers that she knew of, in
> her opinion she couldn't see them standing up in court. But then she
> also said that advice was worth what we paid for it.  If we really
> wanted to know, hire a lawyer.  I never did.  
> 
> Also, one thing I've noticed and I may be reading to much into this.  I
> have a couple of friends who work for law firms.  The e-mails I get from
> them that are sent from their work accounts never have a disclaimer on
> them.  Most other e-mails I get from peoples work accounts all have
> those silly disclaimers.  Maybe my friends at the law firms know
> something the rest of don't.

I suspect that what the law firms know is that they are required to keep 
years and years worth of correspondence, and useless tag lines take up 
space.

     -- Alma