Ugly, ugly email disclaimers

July 30th, 2007 - 13:11 | 3 comments

What do you think of email disclaimers? The kind that say things like:

This confidential e-mail is for the addressee only. If received in error, do not retain/copy/disclose it without our consent. You must delete it immediately and return it to us. Please do not infer from this communication that we like you. We are not responsible for any damage caused by a virus or alteration by a third party after it is sent. Outgoing attachments are scanned prior to leaving our server but they are opened at your own risk and you are advised to scan incoming email for viruses before opening any attached files. Don’t think we won’t sue your ass. We give no guarantee that any communication is virus-free and accept no responsibility for virus contamination or other system loss or damage of any kind. Nothing you do is our fault. Nothing that happens is anything to do with us. Emails are not necessarily secure. Opinions held within this document and/or attachments are those of the author and not necessarily those of the company. We as a company operate under a groupthink principle, and no advice or help given by an individual is of any use whatsoever. We as a company take no responsibility for anything, but demand money nevertheless. Even this disclaimer is not to be trusted. It may have been altered by a third party. Any advice given herein should not be followed without consulting appropriate legal counsel.

I hate them. They repeat themselves, clog up inboxes, are normally all HTML, make email conversations ridiculously hard to follow, must take up insane amounts of bandwidth and have the air of businesswank. I also find them dubious. I send an email to the wrong person, and my telling them to delete it actually has any legal bearing? And surely there must be rules regarding the liability of a virus-laden email - does saying ‘it might have, but it’s nothing to do with me’ make any difference? I am not a lawyer, but that sounds dodgy. Research suggests that they’re advisable rather than legally binding, but nevertheless it seems OTT.

One of my clients has been told to put these ridiculous things in their emails, and it looks dreadful. I’ve recommended they put a link to disclaimer text hosted on their website. It’s still a bit of HTML, but far better than all that kak. Of course, nobody’s going to read it. But nobody reads it anyway, so what’s the difference? But maybe I’m wrong - any opinions?

-----

3 Responses to “Ugly, ugly email disclaimers”

1 Nod Jul 30th, 2007 at 8:38 pm

It has got to the point, where an email from a company employee without the disclaimer is unusual, improper and too short to feel like it has the full weight of a business email.
2 Andrew Jul 30th, 2007 at 8:41 pm

Maybe, but I’d probably consider an email without the disclaimer to be the mark of a company clever enough to get out of such ridiculous crap
3 Ed Jul 30th, 2007 at 8:41 pm

We have this:

start quote:
This message contains confidential information and is intended only
for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you
should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please
notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this
e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system.

E-mails are not encrypted and cannot be guaranteed to be secure or
error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost,
destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. The sender
therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the
contents of this message which arise as a result of e-mail transmission.
If verification is required please request a hard-copy version. This
message is provided for informational purposes and should not be
construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any securities
or related financial instruments.
end quote

We also have a bit more about my company and it’s regulatory bodies / registered addresses.

The main one is “This message is provided for informational purposes and should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any securities or related financial instruments” for us. I guess the virus one is just to cover us legally, but the reputational risk is extremely high.
The section about disseminating information is probably just a big warning/threat. I suppose there could be some form of legal consequence, but I’m not sure. The scenario I can think of is if information about an IPO were accidentally sent out. This would be privileged information and acting on it could get that person into serious trouble.

I would say that it’s only kind to inform people of mis-addressed emails.

-----

Commenting Policy: Thoughts, observations, argument, debate and all other conversational wonderments are encouraged, but personal attacks or general trolling will result in your comment being deleted and your account/IP banned. If you're nice, however, you get strawberries.