On Thu, 15 Jun 2000, Jeffrey Goldberg wrote:
> For stopping the particularly bad meme in the UK of "This message is
> indended for the use of the specified recipients only, ..." I pointed out
I never really understood that disclaimer. In fact, I don't understand any
disclaimer or the point of having them at all.
When I finish a phone call to a customer, I don't inform that customer that the
phone conversation was for that customer and if the customer isn't the customer
I thought s/he was then they must disregard everything I've said etc.
I also don't finish phone conversations by telling the other caller that my
views are my own, not of my company, etc. and I don't do either of the above
for letters, compliments slips, faxes, pager messages, or on any websites. So
why for crying out loud should I do so for e-mail?
I suspect that being able to add disclaimers appeared on the shrink-wrap for
some wannabe sendmail/exim Windows clone that was absolutely terrible at mail
delivery but allowed a disclaimer to automagically be appended to the bottom of
outgoing mail. Managment saw it and told their lawyers 'come up with a
disclaimer - our mail software supports it, so there must be a reason for
having it' and so the lawyers dilligently pulled out some archaic laws
discussing the liability of communications. A disclaimer was written and that
company's competitors and customers all saw it and thought that they would ride
on the back of this free legal advice and put disclaimers in themselves.
In effect, disclaimers are pointless, worthless and annoying pieces of drivel
that should be banned. It is a meme gone wrong, and I now have a policy of
declining to answer the sales enquiries of companies whose sales droids have
such wastes of bandwidth attatched automagically to the bottom of their mail.
There used to be a time when a sig of more than 4 lines got flamed. Now look
where we are. :-(
--
Paul Robinson - Internet Services @ Akita -
http://www.akita.co.uk
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