Andre Pang blogs about the annoyance of email disclaimers. For a while I had a .sig indicating that it was a condition of sending email to me that the sender agrees to legalistic terms in their .sig being inapplicable to me.
220 smtp.sws.net.au ESMTP Postfix – by sending email to this server you agree that any legalistic sig in your message does not apply to anyone who receives the message through this service.
Now I have changed my Postfix greeting to the above. Anyone who sends me mail agrees that their .sig does not apply to me. Suggestions for improvements to the above text are welcome.
Good idea – I guess that this is legally as worthless as non negotiated signature legalese, but at least it is way more fun and neatly underlines how stupid unilateral contracts are.
I modified the example proposed by http://smallprint.netzoo.net/reag/ to make it more comprehensive – though it would probably require Postfix’s multiline smtpd_banner patch found at http://ftp.wl0.org/openpkg/postfix/postfix-2.1.4-multiline-greeting.diff
READ CAREFULLY. By transmitting email to this server you agree personally and on behalf of your employer or organization, to release the recipients from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies (â€BOGUS AGREEMENTSâ€) that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to the recipient’s ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release the recipients from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer or organization.
But maybe it’ll fit on a single line… Gotta check !
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Jean-Marc: If my disclaimer and the other party’s disclaimer are both worthless then I’m happy. If the other party’s sig disclaimer has some merit then mine gets in first and wins. In either case I win. ;)