There used to be an informal rule of netiquette that an email signature
should not run to more than four or five lines with the object of saving
everyone downloading time and conserving bandwidth. Now it is legal
disclaimers that seem to be vying with each other in length and
complexity. I've just read one that was 13 lines long - twice the length
of the message!
I can see that public and private corporations might believe that
catch-all disclaimers will protect them from responsibility for
electronic mishaps but is there a shorter form of words that would do the
job? Is anyone on this list using a really pithy legal disclaimer on
their email messages? Or is anyone subscribing from a UK local authority
which has made a positive decision not to clutter the network with
unenforceable email disclaimers? Could we do a little benchmarking
exercise and share best practice with our legal and IT colleagues?
I doubt whether GCHQ bothers to monitor lis-pub-libs traffic but, for the
sake of any other spooks who may be listening-in, the subject line of
this message was originally penned by the Bard and is quoted here with
ironic intent not as a genuine call to mayhem and murder.
Robert Harden
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www.harden.dial.pipex.com
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Reading disclaimers can seriously damage your resistance to paranoia.
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