email disclaimer

**EvilWeevil** · 15 August 2008, 14:26

Companies Act requires business registration details.

**pmeswani** · 15 August 2008, 15:48

Originally posted by chef View Post

Hi,

I currently have the following disclaimer on all business emails

"This e-mail is intended only for the use of the addressees named above and may be confidential.
If you are not an addressee you must not use any information contained in nor copy it nor inform any person other than the addressees of its existence or contents."

does anyone know of any legal requirements or wordings a disclaimer should follow?

Chef

To be honest, the disclaimer you have mentioned above could be meaningless in UK Law. Have a look at http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/stupid-disclaimers/. The disclaimer is not enforceable as there is little or no way for you to enforce it or have legal challenge (even if you have been notified it).

Disclaimer: The reading of my post is soley designed to be read by the general public. Anyone else reading this cannot distribute the message via any means available.

**themistry** · 15 August 2008, 16:03

Further to the above, if memory serves me correctly (and it may not

), all email disclaimers are meaningless as they are read after the content they are meant to cover.

Thus, if you put the disclaimer at the top of all emails, it may provide some legal protection. However if they are just tacked onto the bottom (as is the norm), they provide zero legal protection and just help to consume more bandwidth... or so I was told.

TM

**blacjac** · 15 August 2008, 16:43

Seems reasonable.

After all what you are saying is "You are not allowed to read what you have just read".

**BolshieBastard** · 15 August 2008, 19:50

The disclaimer isnt meaningless, especially where the company has employees who could, maliciously or otherwise send a virus or use information on an organisation (say insider dealing) to their advantage.

Its advisable to have a disclaimer on any business email. Someone would have a hard time arguing it was meaningless when probably 80% of businesses have one.

**blacjac** · 15 August 2008, 22:24

Just because 80% of businesses have one doesn't mean it's meaningful.....

What's the percentage of people who buy extended warranties on toasters?

**Ardesco** · 15 August 2008, 22:42

It's not meaningless because 90% of people will probably believe it if it sounds legal.

It doesn't matter if it stands up in court or not, legal jargon is enough to worry most people into compliance.

**blacjac** · 16 August 2008, 09:14

I would agree with you in most cases, however legal jargon telling you that you are not allowed to read what you have just read before reading the legal jargon is obviously rubbish.

As an earlier poster said, if you put it at the top of the email it would probably have the desired effect. But to put it at the bottom is just nonsense.

**DaveB** · 16 August 2008, 09:55

Originally posted by chef View Post

Hi,

I currently have the following disclaimer on all business emails

"This e-mail is intended only for the use of the addressees named above and may be confidential.
If you are not an addressee you must not use any information contained in nor copy it nor inform any person other than the addressees of its existence or contents."

does anyone know of any legal requirements or wordings a disclaimer should follow?

Chef

Doesn't work. Because of the way email works the only way you get it if is your email address is in the header, i.e. you have to have been an addressee to get it in the first place. Whether you were the person the sender wanted it to go to is another matter, but for you to have got it they have to have sent it to your email address. These things were written by legal bods who didn't understand that email isn't like snail mail. You can't accidentally deliver an email to the wrong address, which is what this would cover, it will be delivered to whatever address you tell it to go to, even if it's not the one you meant to send it to.

Plus all the other stuff posted about not reading it untill after you've read the content.

email disclaimer