Stupid disclaimer tricks

[sylvar]

Confidential: The information in this e-mail message (including any
attachments) is intended only for the use of the recipient(s) named
above and as such is privileged and confidential. If you are not an
intended recipient of this message or an agent responsible for
delivering it to the intended recipient(s), be hereby notified that you
have received this message in error. Any review, dissemination,
distribution, printing or copying of this message is strictly
prohibited. If you believe you have received this message in error,
please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail and delete this
message from your system(s).

Let's examine this.

intended only for the use of the recipient(s) named above: What about the bcc: field?

and as such is privileged and confidential: "As such" unwisely limits the sense of the terms 'privileged' and 'confidential'. It implies that if the message were intended for unnamed recipients, such as might happen in a mass mailing, it is no longer privileged or confidential.

or an agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient(s): Mail transport agents? Secretaries? Agent Smith? Is it not my responsibility as a helpful person to deliver a misdirected message to its intended recipients, even if I have to spam 100 million addresses to be sure I've delivered it?

be hereby notified that: This phrase should be taken out and shot.

you have received this message in error: Duh. If I'm not an intended recipient, then it must be an error.

Any review, dissemination, distribution, printing or copying of this message is strictly prohibited: How are the intended recipients supposed to read the message or its disclaimer? Surely this should say "if you have received this message in error". Note also that while you may not do any prohibited thing to the message itself, there's nothing here to prohibit someone from transmitting its meaning by paraphrasing the original message. On the other hand, this sentence also seems to prohibit the message from having been transmitted in the first place -- meaning that every recipient must be an unintended recipient!

delete this message from your system(s): Some customers of the company that uses this disclaimer are required by law to keep copies of everything they receive. The disclaimer therefore urges and/or incites unintended recipients to commit a crime (possibly even a felony).

Comments

[ratcliffe1963.livejournal.com]

this is a lame attempt at CYA and would be shot down easily by any lawyer ;) The problem is that with email it is way too easy to pick the wrong recipient from a list. It really should be harder, with the email client displaying all recipients and their names and organizations before the "send" will take. But it doesn't, so people developed this CYA for when they fumblefinger their to list. Such fun ;)