[horde] Couple of Items - Signature When Replying, Not Authorized To Use IMP

[Michael M Slusarz]

Quoting "Jens-U. Mozdzen" <jmozdzen at nde.ag>:

> And actually those company policies needn't be "misguided" - there  
> are countries (Germany being one) where certain signature  
> information is actually required by law. Not under every  
> circumstances, but instead of risking expensive law suites, it is  
> easier to tell the general company user to add a company-designed  
> signature to every business email.

The whole "this is required by law" argument makes me laugh.  At least  
in the current American law landscape.

In (one of) my other lives, I am an attorney.  I used to work on large  
civil cases in Federal Court - these are the cases between Fortune 500  
companies with large delegations of expensive private attorneys.

There was not a single case I ever dealt with where the "disclaimer"  
language in an e-mail meant anything.  It is absolutely pointless.  If  
an e-mail is sent, and there is a copy somewhere, it is most likely  
discoverable.  (In the rare case it it isn't, it has *nothing* to do  
with the disclaimer.)  These kind of disclaimers are analogous to  
shrink-wrap contracts and/or contracts of adhesion - with the caveat  
that e-mail disclaimers are even less enforceable since there  
generally is not any consideration involved.

So with my e-mail client developer hat on, I can do things like design  
the client so that you can't do these kinds of inane, pointless  
actions - at least by default.  Its my small effort to help clean up  
e-mail and make it more useable.

michael

___________________________________
Michael Slusarz [slusarz at horde.org]