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Legal disclaimers in email signatures? Why?

Dave, I just joined a new mailing list and am finding it really weird that while most members have the regular 2-3 line email signatures with their name, company, Web site URL, or similar, a few people have these incredibly long signatures that are some sort of legal disclaimer about the advice they give, whether they can be quoted in other venues. etc. What's the story here?


Dave's Answer:

As you clearly know, the recommended netiquette guidelines for email and group posting signatures is four lines, ideally prefaced by a single line with just two dashes, but after years of Internet evolution, lots of people ignore it and do what they want.

Even I'm guilty. Here's my typical signature now:

Dave Taylor
------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Intuitive Systems: Online Strategies and Communications
------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Innovative Business Thinking @ http://www.intuitive.com/blog/

Count the lines and I've exceeded the recommended four. Ah well.

But there are some people who go quite a bit further with their signatures, beyond what folk find acceptable. As it turns out, on one of the groups I'm involved with, there's a discussion about one person's rather long signature, and it's exactly what you're talking about:

This E-mail message is private and confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended solely for the addressee. All emails sent by me remain my property. You must obtain written permission to forward in part or whole any message, data contained within, MX and other header information. Doing so without my written permission constitutes an agreement between me, you and the party you forwarded the information to pay me a sum of no less than $5000. This is a legally enforceable contract between me, you, and the party to whom you forwarded the information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying, reproduction, modification, or publication of this communication is illegal and prohibited by law. Please delete the message from your computer and destroy any copies. This message is not intended to be relied upon by any person without subsequent written confirmation of its contents. The sender therefore disclaims all responsibility and accepts no liability of any kind that may arise from any person acting, or refraining from acting, upon the contents of the message without having had subsequent written confirmation.

If you have received this message in error, please contact me at the following number:
Smith Walker & Associates Inc.
( Office: 954-567-0520
( E-fax: 509-696-3705

However you slice it, that's a long email signature!

Grayson Walker, of Smith, Walker & Associates has a quite coherent response to queries about the length and content of this email signature, however, and he's allowed me to reproduce it here:

"Several people have expressed concern about the standard disclaimer I have in my company's signature file.

"The disclaimer was written by my attorney. Although it may appear imposing, in layman's terms, it says that I own what I create. It's that simple. As to it's being unenforceable, that is a matter for the courts to decide.

"I also teach in several graduate business programs. The greatest threat to intellectual property rights and academic honesty comes from plagiarism. Plagiarism is the theft of intellectual property. In each syllabus, I discuss plagiarism, intellectual property rights, and the fact that I use www.mydropbox.com and/or www.turnitin.com to detect plagiarism. Is my goal to detect and/or catch those who plagiarize? No, for my real goal is to educate my students so they will not plagiarize, or deter them from doing so. I believe deterrence is better than detection.

"I view the corporate disclaimer similarly. Deterrence is better than detection. If it deters undesired behavior, then it is valuable. I have an aversion to fraud. I report scams and work to protect people on the Internet. If someone is interest in something I wrote, they contact me and we take if from there. It's really very straightforward."

A very interesting perspective on the matter. The exceptionally long signature is still not particularly friendly to others on the list, but the reasoning behind it does make sense, and in our present culture of cheating and plagiarism, I completely understand his perspective.

How about you? Do you have an unusually long signature in your email messages and/or do you dislike other folk with long signatures in their own messages to you?


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Reader Comments To Date: 2

hyrcan said, on September 1, 2006 10:39 AM:

Thats the dumbest sig I've ever seen... that person would quickly be moved to my baned list. Is the sig enforcable? Who knows... the current state of the US legal system...which is based on who has the most $$ and NOT justice... it would depend on who was willing to spend more time and money. One also needs to wonder about the legal risk he is undertaking for forcing contracts on people with out their consent... It's no differnt than sending an email out to a million people that says the content below is private and confidential if you read it you own me $5000 dollars and going out and sueing those people who read the message, or making a shirt that reads 'This person is not responcable for any actions done towards you, by reading this you agree to the terms of this shirt' and then punching people in the nose with it on...

Elector said, on March 5, 2007 9:29 AM:

Please note that if this site checked the original poster, you would have found that he is a phony business man. Smith-Walker & Associates is a Web Page invented by a scammer named A.Grayson Walker III who if you search the florida courts found to be a holder of a PHD but does not utilize it. His big business was also found questionable and his money making ability is between $40,000.00 and $60,000.00

http://www.floridasupremecourt.org/clerk/briefs/2006/1001-1200/06-1138_JurisIni.pdf

and

http://www.5dca.org/Opinions/Opin2006/032706/5D04-2029.op.pdf

Enjoy

Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!











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