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Automated messages commonly found at the end of company e-mails are meant to offer some legal protection—but they don't. Statements such as "Intended only for the designated recipient," have become so prevalent that they've lost any influence they might have had, unless the point is to annoy people.
These disclaimers attempt to impose a contractual obligation, but since issued unilaterally, are probably legally useless. The Economist reports that in Europe, for example, a directive from the European Commission tells courts to strike out any unreasonable contractual obligation on a consumer if they have not freely negotiated it.
The Economist states: "Lawyers and experts on internet policy say no court case has ever turned on the presence or absence of such an automatic e-mail footer in America." The piece goes on to point out that the U.S. is one of the more "litigious" of the "rich countries."
Given how little attention these messages get from anyone with an e-mail account, they might as well be invisible. It's too bad they aren't, because when e-mails are sent to the office printer, they use up paper unnecessarily.
Spare us the e-mail yada-yada [The Economist]
Disclaimers in email signatures are not just annoying, but legally meaningless [Lifehacker]
—Maggie Shader
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