Re: [Full-disclosure] Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable if breached?

[Ray P <sixsigma98@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

US-centric response:

If there is no law, there can be no liability unless a contract exists.

For a contract to exist, consideration (usually money) has been exchanged.

If you simply receive an email by mistake, no consideration has been exchanged.

Consider this angle: If a company adds such a disclaimer, is it a tacit 
acknowledgment that they have a duty to protect the contents of the email? If 
so, is it negligence if they fail to do so by sending it to the wrong person?

Would the _intended_ recipient have a case against the sender for contractual 
failure to protect confidential information (or whatever) if the _un_intended 
recipient posts it somewhere or otherwise discloses its contents?

If a company sends me something in the mail that I did not order, it's mine and 
I do not have to pay for it.

If a company sends me an unsolicited email, does it become mine? Remember, it 
wasn't like a package delivered to the wrong address. The email was delivered 
to my address with my name on it.

Ray

> Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:50:51 -0400
> From: gr@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> To: full-disclosure@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [Full-disclosure] Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable if  
> breached?
> 
> At 2007-10-11 08:52 +1000, Kelly Robinson <caliana1989@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > It is common these days for email messages to contain a disclosure notice,
> > which may include statements such as:
> 
> You forgot the most absurd: "the content of this message [sent often,
> on purpose, to publicly visible and archived mailing lists] is
> intended 'only for the adressee'".
> 
> >  Do these notices carry any *legal* force?  Why or Why not?
> 
> I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is the same as
> Geoff's (gjgowey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx): because the warning, such as
> it is, appears after the recipient has already read the content
> with no way (and not even tacking it on the top would really be
> enough, I don't think) for the recipient to opt-out and simply not
> read that content.
> 
> They should be contrasted with warnings of potential legal
> culpability if a connecting user continues to use a system in
> /etc/issue or similar: those are a Good Idea, and help one's case
> against attackers, because they go a long way to nullify "I didn't
> know it wasn't okay" sorts of defenses.
> 
> -- 
> gabriel rosenkoetter
> gr@xxxxxxxxxxxx

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