Email disclaimers - do they really work?
Jun 30th, 2008 by Micheal
I’m sure you have at one point or another seen an email containing text that says something along the lines of “The contents of this email may contain confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that disclosure, copying, distribution, or taking action based upon the information contained herein is strictly prohibited.” But do these really work?
There’s been a lot of talk over the years about these disclaimers. Do they really work? Are they really legally binding?
The consensus from what I’ve seen over the years is that no, they neither work nor can they be expected to hold up in a court of law. So why do people add them? Probably because they don’t understand the implications and it makes them feel better. I recently received an email containing the following disclaimer:
Important Notice:
The contents of this email and attachments to it may contain confidential and/or legally privileged information. Â This information is only for use by the intended recipient. Â If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that disclosure, copying, distribution, or taking action based upon the information contained herein is strictly prohibited. Â If this email was received in error, please notify the sender and return the documents immediately.
It contains the usual disclaimer, saying that the content may contain privileged information. Blah blah blah. If I’m not the intended recipient, I have to notify the sender and what’s this, return the documents immediately? Sure, right after I make a copy of them. The problem with these disclaimers is that they rely on a trust-based model. Furthermore, all of the disclaimers I have seen come at the end of the email, after I have read the email. So the email is already in memory (not just my RAM ;)), and no amount of pleading in an email disclaimer is going to change that.
After searching for the below links, another phrase stuck out at me. Taking any action based on the email. So on the one hand, it tells me to return the documents (but not delete!), but then it turns around and tells me to not return the documents, because I can’t take any action based on the email. Funny how that works. I would love to audit the organization this came from.
Want more information on email disclaimers?