E-Mail Disclosure Agreements?

sloondogger asks: "I got an e-mail from a customer the other day that included this at the end of what was a clueless and annoying attempt to communicate anyway: 'This e-mail and any attachments are confidential and may contain commercially sensitive information and/or copyright material of Southern Ocean Systems Pty Ltd or third parties. You should only re-transmit or distribute the material if you are authorised to do so. This notice should not be removed.' I don't believe that there is anything that is legally binding to this statement. I, of course, removed it when I replied. I thought it would be interesting to find out if these do have any sort of legal power at all or if they are just annoying wastes of bandwidth." Does such an agreement have any more weight now that electronic signatures have passed?

Comments

umm

[nomadic]

It does sound like a pretty flimsy legal disclaimer. If you think about it, the whole internet e-mail distribution system relies on "re-transmitting"...

mail-order pharmacies have similar notices

[Glenn R-P]

My family's mail-order pharmacy has a similar notice.

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTE
This e-mail contains confidential information from [snip], and is intended solely for the use of the individual named on this transmission. If you are not the intended recipient, you are
notified that disclosing, copying, distributing or taking any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, to prevent future transmissions like this, please notify [snip] by forwarding this e-mail to the following address [snip]@[snip].[snip].

It appears at the bottom of the message (at the top would of course be better).

As another poster wrote, using PGP would make more sense.

Not Legally Bound, IMO

[lw54]

A contract requires an offer plus acceptance. This may be considered an offer, but that doesn't mean you have to accept it.

If you don't accept it, you're not bound.

/me waits for an attorney to prove me wrong. :-)

confidentiality of email

[compwizrd]

I've been getting spam from some place in Nigeria, two versions so far. One wants our company to deposit something like 25 million in an account, and they'll transfer 30 million into ours.
Supposedly they're directors of a Petrochemical company there, and have an overflow in a payment to a foreign contractor, and want to steal it for themselves. The other one was similar, with different situation, and different people, but still in Nigeria.
Either way, both said this was strictly confidential, and for the owner of the company only. So maybe they should have sent it to him, instead of me, the sysadmin.

Re:confidentiality of email

[titus-g]

This is a conventional scam (that apparently someone managed to use here (UK) to defraud some serious dosh) ported to the net. The first one I got was from a lawyer representing the family of the ex president wanting to move their ill gotten gains out of the country. Quite worrying (given their history) at the time as all the facts seem to tie up (lawyers name/phone numbers etc), got 2 or 3 since then. Seems to be a purely Nigerian thing though. As for disclaimers at the bottom of email, they are just annoying, wish people would stop using them. I get a lot of 2 line emails followed by a 5+ line disclaimer and same again for the sig/address.

Re:confidentiality of email

[compwizrd]

I even went looking on the Nigerian .gov webpage.. It's amazing how little internet connectivity even the gov't has. As of when i got the first one, i figured there was a remote chance it was a legit um.. well. .scam of whoever they worked for. After they spammed me twice with it, i got pissed off enough to go think about reporting them. Gave up on it when i saw the second different one, with similar plot line =)

Re:Hrm

[titus-g]

They did. 'authorized' is correct in the US, 'authorised' everywhere else. They are Pty so probably au or SE Asia.

Haiku

[quintessent]

By strict, binding law, This posted Haiku must be Kept confidential!

Tangible medium, standard boilerplate,...

[coyote-san]

You should see the cover sheets that some law firms use on faxes... :-)

Anyway, something that Law 101 For Programmers should cover is that anything on your disk is "reduced to tangible form." On the one hand, that means that it's covered by copyright law. On the other hand, that means that you have to take more care with it than with, oh, a snippet of conversation overheard in a public bathroom.

Furthermore, there are a *lot* of places where this type of statement makes sense -- so much sense that failure to include it could give the sender a lot of grief. E.g., if I'm negotiating to sell something, someone at the other site lets the details of my offer out, and that information subsequently costs me a far larger sale because my competitor is able to underbid me.

Because of the latter concerns, what you saw was probably attached to *all* outbound mail automatically - at the same point a copy is made for future reference. :-) If you're already doing business with them then *that* contract probably says you'll honor the non-disclosure -- and ignore it could cost you your job (and make it harder to find another one, since you would be fired "for cause.") If it's from someone you don't know, then it should be treated the same way you want *your* misdelivered mail to be treated.

And if it's a Nigerian (or any other) scam, it should be forwarded to the appropriate authorities. That Nigerian scam has been bloody - some people actually traveled to Nigeria where they were kidnapped and/or killed.

(P.S., IANAL, but one of my graduate software engineering classes had a section on legal issues, and a visiting lecture by a local practicing lawyer.)

Blanket Use of Confidentiality Notice

[Detritus]

After doing some reading, I've found that there appear to be certain situations where a confidentiality notice makes sense.

• Patient Medical Records
• Trade Secrets
• Privileged Legal Documents
• Business Plans

Some lawyers recommend putting a confidentiality notice on every fax and email. I'm not sure that is a good idea. It devalues the meaning of the notice when it is applied without thought. It might backfire in court if you are trying to convince a judge/jury that you took reasonable precautions to protect the confidentiality of some information and the opposing lawyer can argue that the only steps you took were to automatically append some legal boilerplate to every fax and email.