Good morning!
On Tue, 15 Nov 2005 16:00:27 -0500
Neksus <neksus@gmail.com> wrote:
says that in Germany, this would be considered as email tampering and
would be "illegal" (I guess if the disclaimer is automatically added
in the sending process).
Here in Germany there are several reasons why adding such a disclaimer
is not recommended:
- Email is considered a letter, thus protected by the letter privacy
law anyway. At quite considerable fines.
- Corollary: *technical* stamping (like adding a "virus-check" stamp)
is okay, while *changing* a mail (as adding legally binding clauses)
is forbidden and considered forgery.
- If such a disclaimer is intended to be a legally binding document, it
has to be accepted (and signed) by both parties. It usually is not,
thus it is not binding. It is completely void if was not added by the
original sender (but e.g. by the mail gateway), anyway.
- Your actions (like sending the letter to one you did not intend) do
not match your words ("if you are not the intended recipient...", thus
the disclaimer, the email itself and even its contents (contract) are
disputable. Not always a good idea.
- Corollary: from the fact that you still add such a disclaimer even if
you know that it might be invalid, an opponent can construct that you
intended to do/mail something problematic with malice aforethought.
With a non-disclaimed (and non-cryptographic) mail you always can say
"sorry, typo" - but with that disclaimer (and especially when pointing
to it in a dispute) a good lawyer could construct intentional fraud
from it (along the lines: you added it while knowing it is invalid and
then committed that action so you must have *planned* this).
IIRC these are the main problems with such added disclaimers (here in
Germany). For details please ask your lawyer as IANAL and laws are
different around the globe.
Bye
Volker
--
Volker Tanger http://www.wyae.de/volker.tanger/
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