Confidentially, E-Mail Disclaimers Are Just Dumb
This message is for the sole use of the intended recipient. If you have received this message in error, you will immediately destroy it, cut out your tongue, and slash your wrists.
Do e-mail confidentiality notices serve any real purpose? Do they actually have any legal standing? And if not, why do so many people -- particularly lawyers -- routinely append them to all the messages they send out
Follow @infoworldThis message is for the sole use of the intended recipient. If you have received this message in error, you will immediately destroy it, cut out your tongue, and slash your wrists.
Do e-mail confidentiality notices serve any real purpose? Do they actually have any legal standing? And if not, why do so many people -- particularly lawyers -- routinely append them to all the messages they send out?
While this has been bugging me for years, my readers have been discussing it lately because of a recent story that involved a confidentiality notice in a form letter from graphics vendor EVGA denying a warranty claim. While EVGA eventually took care of that reader's issue (and EVGA president Andrew Han told me they'll remove the disclaimer from all their e-mail because they "are not going to do any good" anyway), it turns out that confidentiality notices in general have their defenders.
Not surprisingly, many of those who think these confidentiality disclaimers are a good idea are lawyers. "We advise all our clients to put a similar notice on all their e-mail and faxes," wrote one attorney. "Electronic communications can fall in the wrong hands, and this simply warns an unintended recipient who might otherwise try to take unfair advantage of the mistake. I can't imagine any court would rule otherwise."
Others aren't quite so sure that the notices are enforceable in court but think they might be a good idea anyway. "Like so many things in law, the reason the boilerplate language exists is to minimize risk and provide cover if something goes wrong," another reader wrote. "A lawyer can say, look, the offending party can't claim ignorance that he shouldn't have distributed the sensitive email because he was put on notice by the language in the boilerplate. Open any book published in this country and the copyright symbol is there along with a statement of copyright infringement. They're completely unnecessary, not legally required yet they're there. Why? Because lawyers are risk adverse and they'd rather the publisher print the symbol/statement under the theory that it doesn't harm and can only help. I think the same goes with the boilerplate language."
Many others feel like EVGA's president and don't believe the confidentiality notices serve any real purpose. "These e-mail disclaimers aren't worth the electrons they're printed on," wrote one reader. "It's just like the software EULAs. Before you can even see it, you are somehow bound by the terms of this supposed contract."
