Photo Credit: uk-ssb.org
This week, I received an email.
I opened it on my phone, and it was something I was expecting—some good news that I was waiting for.
But there was something at the bottom of the email:
This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error, please notify the system manager. This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee, you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this email. Please notify the sender immediately by email if you have received this email by mistake and delete this email from your system. 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.
Email Disclaimers Drive Us All Crazy
This was a lot to get through on a phone, and I was worried about how much space would be filling up my inbox with every communication. These email disclaimers can add up pretty quickly.
As far back as eleven years ago, the Economist looked at this issue and concluded that the legal implications of having disclaimers on email was so minor that it really didn’t matter whether people used them or not.
In the article, they said that email disclaimers are virtually unenforceable, especially in setting where a message crosses national borders. A decade of research suggests that no one in the US had a case swing in any direction because of an email disclaimer in a communique. It has helped to influence the intent of the sender, but disclaimers generally have not received matching importance to the space they take up in our inboxes.
Do Disclaimers Actually Work?
But do they work as a behavior tool in Canada? Do people behave better seeing these disclaimers?
In today’s world, the answer is maybe, but mostly no. Many of us have become so desensitized to them that they really have become nothing more than a footer of empty text. (This 2012 article positions the argument very well.)
Especially in cases where the disclaimer is placed at the bottom of an email, the behavioral benefit of knowing that a receiver of an email will treat the communication as confidential can be lost. If a reader views confidential information and then reads the disclaimer, that person cannot be held responsible for having read confidential information if it wasn’t intended for the receiver originally.
Where Disclaimers May Save You
In legally binding settings and contractual scenarios with high stakes and financial implications, email disclaimers are an essential ingredient for defining the contractual or non-contractual relationship between the sender and the reader. Though it may not stand up on its own in court, it can help to safeguard the content in your email as well as your relationship with the receiver of the email.
So it looks like I will have to suffer with email disclaimers for the time being—as we all will have to do.
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