This whole debate reminds me of this scene from Fight Club.
"If a new car built by my company leaves Chicago traveling west at 60 miles per hour, and the rear differential locks up, and the car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside, does my company initiate a recall? You take the population of vehicles in the field (A) and multiple it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average cost of an out-of-court settlement (C). A times B times C equals X. This is what it will cost if we don't initiate a recall. If X is greater than the cost of a recall, we recall the cars and no one gets hurt. If X is less than the cost of a recall, then we don't recall." Let's take the probability of an email being sent to an "unprivileged" party (A), then multiply it by the probability of them doing something damaging with it (B), then multiply that by the probability of even being able to get them in a court room (C), then multiply that by the probability of actually being able to prove it and get a settlement or win the case (D) to get an expected settlement/winnings (E). Then let's subtract the time and legal fees (F) to get to where we can all agree these disclaimers are bullshit empty threats that accomplish nothing because it will cost you more to pursue legal remedy than any imaginary harm you incurred when someone ignores them. The solution is to double check the "To:" address in your email, not to slap a lengthy Terms of Reading This agreement in your signature. -- This email contains my views and by reading them you voluntarily forfeit all right to argue or disagree. You acknowledge that by so doing, you must pay me $10 million US dollars or provide me with 3 tons of beef tacos. Failure to do so will cause C'thulhu to rise from the depths of R'lyeh and devour your firstborn child, and you'll accidentally read spoilers for the last season of Game of Thrones which will ruin the show for you. ________________________________ From: mailop <mailop-boun...@mailop.org> on behalf of John Levine <jo...@taugh.com> Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2018 10:58:41 AM To: mailop@mailop.org Cc: noel.but...@ausics.net Subject: Re: [mailop] Pet Peeve of the day, legalese signatures In article <135d5ef655535e5f34c90330ff422...@ausics.net> you write: >I find these threats very useful. They tell me with 100% reliability >that the person sending the mail is a nitwit, or if applied by a >company mail server, he works for nitwits. ... >you're of course speaking from U.S.A. law point, NEWSFLASH: the U.S.A >is not the only country in the world that uses this thing called The >Internet (I know it will be hard for americans to grasp that fact, but, >suck it up) I am reasonably sure that contract law in Australia and other common law countries is similar to US contract law, so I see no reason to change my analysis. Perhaps I'll post some of your messages on my US blog and see what happens. For Vittorio, there are some disclaimers which while tedious are unobjectionable, e.g., this is not legal advice, and so forth. It's the bogus threats and assertions of confidentiality to complete strangers that make us roll our eyes. FWIW, I've talked to US lawyers who said, roughly, well other people put on those things so we do too. Just because they're lawyers doesn't mean they're competent, and particularly whether they're competent in the rather arcane area of law applied to international electronic communications. R's, John _______________________________________________ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
_______________________________________________ mailop mailing list mailop@mailop.org https://chilli.nosignal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mailop
