Email Disclaimers

[David Bandel]

On 5/27/05, Net Llama! <netllama at linux-sxs.org> wrote:
> On Fri, 27 May 2005, Roger Oberholtzer wrote:
> > On Fri, 2005-05-27 at 03:05, James McDonald wrote:
> > > I am working as the One Stop IT Shop for my company and the question of email disclaimers has arisen. You know the type... This is priveleged blah blah, if you receive it in error blah blah.
> > >
> > > I was wondering if anyone on list has any experience with them and if they have information as to where I can get a good discussion on the why's and where's and hows of it.
> >
> > Lots of companies do this (as well as require fonts...). I think both
> > stem from an administrator with too much time.
> 
> s/administrator/legal-dept

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
-- 
Focus on the dream, not the competition.
            - Nemesis Air Racing Team motto