Re: It's Your Call: Which E-mail Disclaimer is Best? (LONG)

[Doug Isenberg <disenberg -at- gigalaw -dot- com>]

	From a legal perspective, I can't help but inject a few other thoughts 
into this discussion.  Such as:

	-- The effectiveness of any disclaimer is proportional, in part, to its 
visibility.  In other words, the more discrete a disclaimer, the less 
likely it is to be read, which means it is less likely to be legally 
enforceable.  So, in the context of an e-mail message, query whether a 
disclaimer is more likely to be read not only if it's shoter but if it 
appears AT THE BEGINNING (or header) of an e-mail message rather than at 
the end (in the footer).  Yes, it may seem odd and obnoxious, but perhaps 
it is more likley to get attention.

	-- In any event, the legal significance of any e-mail disclaimer is 
questionable.  For some thoughts on this issue from an English (U.K.) 
perspective -- many of the issues are the same from a U.S. perspective -- 
see the article, "The Legal Position of E-mail Disclaimers" on GigaLaw.com 
at http://www.gigalaw.com/articles/halberstam-2000-03-p1.html

	-- Finally, what's the significance of asking the wrong recipient to send 
the e-mail back to the sender?  Instead of ridding himself of the e-mail, 
isn't the recipient actually compounding the problem by creating a second 
copy of it on his own computer (that is, not only will he have the original 
e-mail in his "in" or "trash" box, but by sending it back he'll also create 
a copy in his "out" box!).

Doug Isenberg, Esq.
Editor & Publisher, GigaLaw.com
FREE daily Internet law news via e-mail!  Subscribe at 
http://www.GigaLaw.com/news


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