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Email disclaimers - what's the point? Email disclaimers - what's the point?Email disclaimers... they're just those annoying and pointless statements at the bottom of an email, right? So why have you come to a site devoted to the subject? The answer is most probably because you have been told you need an email disclaimer. Maybe your boss has told you to set one up. Perhaps your legal department has insisted on it. And the reason will almost certainly be because the law requires it for your industry! And as you will learn, there is a lot more to the subject of email disclaimers than you would imagine. "But email disclaimers carry no legal authority!" you exclaim. And at this point we have to clarify what we mean by a disclaimer. What is an email disclaimer?Strictly speaking, an email disclaimer is a piece of text designed to try and limit liability, often placed at the bottom of an email. This is frequently combined with a confidentiality notice starting along the lines of "This message contains confidential information and is intended only for...". This kind of text has dubious legal merit but depending on the issues involved may just sway a case in your favour. So why might the law require me to have one?This is where we have to expand the definition of an email disclaimer to encompass any text that is put into a message which is additional to the main content. Also referred to as an email footer, email signature, email boilerplate and email signoff among various others, the content often includes the company name, registered office address and company registration details as this is a legal requirement for business email in many countries, including the majority of those in the European Union. Some industries may require a company to make certain disclosure statements when communicating by email, for example those companies governed by the Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the United States. Is there anything else I need to add?If you are going to the trouble of adding extra content to your emails, you might want to consider smartening up your company image with logos and personalising each message with the sender's contact information. Sounds like I should do all of this. I'd better set up some signatures on my email clients.Many email clients such as Microsoft Outlook have a "Signatures" feature built-in which can be set up to enter some predefined content when you compose a message. Set it up so that every email client has the right signature and you're home free, right? Well, in an ideal world, yes, but in the real world it's a little different. Because these signatures are all set up on the client machines, users will sooner or later either delete or change your signature files. It may be deliberate or it may be accidental, but that's what users do! And if you overcome that problem, they can still deliberately or accidently delete the text straight out of the message. If email compliance regulations require you to have an email disclaimer then this method is not reliable enough. So what are my alternatives?The first step is to take responsibility for adding the email disclaimer away from the email client, and set it up on a system further down the line. Possible candidates here might include a firewall, an anti-virus or an anti-spam system. Generally this type of software or device will include a feature for adding text to some or all email messages that pass through it. Assuming that all of your messages route through this system, this solution ticks all the boxes in terms of straight email compliance. Is there a downside to adding the email disclaimer on a firewall/anti-virus/anti-spam system?From the purely legal standpoint the answer is no, unless your regulations require you to add a disclaimer to internal messages. In practice, however, there are some drawbacks. Firstly, many of these systems simply allow plain text to be entered. That means no control over the colour and layout, and no logos or other images. Secondly, there is unlikely to be any control over where the email disclaimer goes, other than at the very top of the email or at the very bottom. Thirdly (and this is the most irritating one), there is unlikely to be any way to prevent the system adding the disclaimer again if it is already there. After several replies have occurred in an email exchange, disclaimer text can very quickly build up so that it ends up largely becoming an email disclaimer exchange, dwarfing the useful part of the message. Where is the best place to add the email disclaimer then?For maximum flexibility, the email disclaimer should be added by the server that handles message transport. For example, in the case of Microsoft Exchange, disclaimers should be added on the Exchange 2003 or 2000 server itself, and for Exchange 2007 and above they should be added on the server with the Hub Transport role. The flexibility comes from the fact that these servers handle ALL emails, both internal and external. Why would I want to add email disclaimers to internal mail?With the right software, you can add much more than just legal disclaimer text to your email messages. You should also be able to start differentiating between internal and external messages so that the content that you add varies depending on its destination. In fact you should be able to configure the system to go much further than that and add different content based on any number of factors, such as who the individual senders and recipients are, which groups they are members of, what content is in the email, and much, much more. So, for example, you could add the sender's internal extension number on internal messages, and put their full contact information with email disclaimer on external messages. So I need dedicated email disclaimer software?Your customers and suppliers may well receive more communication from you by email than any other medium. In some cases it may be the only written communication they ever receive from you. It is therefore important that your email communication presents your company in the most professional manner possible. Some email systems provide a solution out of the box. For example, there is a Microsoft Exchange disclaimer feature provided with versions 2007 and above. These solutions tend to be fairly basic, however. Good quality email disclaimer software must provide several things. It should:
Are there any other considerations?Having decided to add email disclaimers into your messages, several things should be considered:
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