[OT] Stupid email disclaimers (was: Creating a cell 'by hand')

[Ben Finney]

"Prepscius, Colin (IT)" <Colin.Prepscius at morganstanley.com> writes:

> NOTICE: If received in error,

If I've received it, it's not "received in error", it's received
successfully.

If, instead, you're referring to the actual recipient being different
from the intended recipient, why are you putting this judgement onto
the actual recipient? Surely they're in no position to judge the
intentions of the sender.

> please destroy and notify sender.

(Insert humour regarding different parsings of the grammar in the
above.)

In that order? If I'm supposed to notify the sender, I have to
re-transmit the message or at least part of it. That seems quite the
opposite of destroying it.

> Sender does not intend to waive confidentiality or privilege.

Then perhaps sender should not be posting to a public forum. There is
*no* confidentiality or privilege in postings to this forum, so this
disclaimer is null and void.

> Use of this email is prohibited when received in error.

There's no way for a recipient to know whether they're in such a
"prohibited" zone. Don't make such threatening statements to an entire
community, please.


In general:

Please, don't attach these disclaimers and threats to messages —
*especially* on a public forum. If you're choosing to apply them to
your messages, please stop.

If, on the other hand, your organisation is applying them
indiscriminately to every outgoing message, even in cases where
there's no such thing as "confidentiality" or "privilege", then
they're mindlessly undermining the meaning of those terms. Please get
your organisation to *only* apply these threats and disclaimers where
they have meaning.

    <URL:http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/stupid-disclaimers/>

-- 
 \           "Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us."  -- James |
  `\                                                    Russell Lowell |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney