Legal poop hole

Posted on 22 Oct 2004 at 15:24

Mel Croucher makes a watertight case for greater honesty in email disclaimers

I was walking home across the beach the other night, with my dog at my side and a fat moon overhead, when a car alarm went off nearby. The dog padded off to investigate, and I reluctantly followed it into a pub car park. In the middle of the tarmac there was a large family saloon, which seemed to be having a fit. Its indicators flashed in spasmodic accompaniment to a cacophony of whoops, screams, whistles and groans - a bit like Graham Norton, but much louder. I could see a moonlit notice in the back window that blazed the message, "Warning, Baby on Board!" So I took hold of my dog, turned my back on the alarm and the warning notice, and walked away completely unconcerned. Nobody else in the vicinity took any notice either, and we all know why. Car alarms do not deter car thieves, they are a bloody nuisance and a waste of time. And how are we supposed to respond to a Baby On Board notice? Whip out a breast in case the invisible occupant is hungry? When I arrived home, I checked my inbox and realised that emails are just like that car. They come equipped with useless alarms and meaningless notices.

You know the ones I mean: those pseudo-legal, jargon-ridden footer notices that are supposed to deter cyber thieves and protect email babies. The first thing they usually inform us is that the content of the email is confidential and may be legally privileged. Then they ask us to make sure we have not received it in error, but if we have then we must take responsibility for deleting it from our system. And heaven help us if we want to copy, use, disclose, distribute, print or actually read the damn thing. Then the sender tells us that if what they have transmitted contains a virus, they cannot take responsibility.

Stake your disclaim
I hereby announce the formation of the Campaign For Real Disclaimers, and I urge you all to join. There's no fee, and there are no rules. All you have to do is add the following Real Disclaimer to emails you send, especially if you work in an office.

"The contents of this email are confidential, so if I have sent it to the wrong person I should lose my job. If you have received it by mistake and it contains some sensitive or sensational material, why don't you forward it to your entire address book and maximise my humiliation. Any views expressed in this email are not necessarily those of our Company, because our Company will say whatever is necessary to get rid of troublemakers. If your hard disk gets trashed and you go bankrupt as a result of receiving this email, you had it coming. I mean, how many times must you be told about firewalls, spam-filters and virus-checkers?"

Author: Mel Croucher