Email disclaimers

[monaghan]

Hi,

I have an issue with an un-related company who has a similiar domain name to me.

I have several times over the last 3 or 4 years advised their Postmaster of the amount of their mail I recieve. I have also offered mail redirection for a nominal fee.

Frequently emails intended for the other company contain what appears to be contractual content and have this sort of footer on their emails

***********************
This email transmission is confidential and intended for the addressee only. It may contain privileged and confidential information. If you are not the person or organisation to whom it is addressed, you must not copy, distribute, or take any action in reliance upon it. If you have received this message in error, please notify the Postmaster@XXXXXXXXXX.com and return it.
**********************

Morally, I can see that I should not be reading & profiting from the content of these mails, however where does this sort of footer message stand legally (in the UK that is).

Presently I bin these mails. Is it my responsibility to manage and protect an unrelated 3rd party's confidential documentation that is incorrectly addressed to me ?

 

[GordyMac]

Well if you want to get technical..

This email transmission is confidential and intended for the addressee only.

It has been sent to your email, whether intentional or not, it says it is for the owner of that email only, and where you are the owner of that email, I'd say legally, you are able to read it because it does not state which email it was intended for.

 

[RobAPI]

That is a bit of a tough one.
What way are you making profit from the emails?

If they found out about it, you could get into serious trouble depending on what the emails are and how you are profiting from them.

If they don't want to pay you a small fee to forward the emails then that is their fault, I would have thought they would have paid it when contracts are being sent via email.

That is actually a pretty good point Gordy, might be different if they gave a name or other information on who the addressee is in the email instead of meaning the addressee by the recipient of the email.

 

[monaghan]

I'm not reading or profiting from the attachments on emails, they get dumped in the bin, I have no intention of doing business based on the content of someone else's email. I have no business interest in their market sector.

My concern is that most companies "Disclaimer" appears to put the responsibility on the recipient to ensure the security of their information.

If their emails were inadvertantly published to the web or forwarded by software on my systems, am I at fault for developing such software or are they at fault for sending email to my server ?

If they pay me to forward mail for specific names to them, then I guess it's my responsibility to ensure I deliver.

If they're not paying me to process their mail do I have any legal responsibility for what happens to it ?

 

[Lesli]

A client of mine had this same, rather persistent problem with the owner of hisdomain.com.au. He did try sending replies to the original sender, and to the recipients, advising them of the problem. Contents included a credit card number, some purchase order numbers, and other confidential client communications - specs for this and that project, talk about engineering change orders, and so forth. He finally just simply got fed up, sent an email to the webmaster and postmaster at that domain detailing what he'd received over the years, and advised them that he was no longer going to correct the mistakes that the senders made. Every once in a while things get through, but for the most part the senders are a bit more careful to make sure that they know what they're doing.

IANAL, but I would think that, in the US at least, if the sender sent it to the wrong address - they're the ones at fault. If you got ahold of an email via fraudulent means, that's one thing. But an error on the part of the person sending it isn't the same as you logging into someone's account.

Of course, with the delightsome legal system, they'll probably try and find a way to make someone else pay.

 

[Dom]

I'm sure if you do your best to delete them and remove them from your computer then you couldn't be held liable if anything did happen.

You tried to notify the people that are meant to get the emails but that didn't work, and you are deleting the emails and not trying to pass them on to anyone else with intension.
I wouldn’t worry about it too much to be honest