Say someone sends you an e-mail and includes a tagline that says it’s confidential and not to share it with other people, etc. Is that legally binding?
What are you normally allowed or not allowed to do with the content of an e-mail if they don’t mention that in their tagline?
I doubt it. For something to be legally binding, both sides must agree to it. If I sent an e-mail to you that said, “by receiving this e-mail, you owe me $5,” it would have no legal force. Neither is any disclaimer tacked on to an e-mail.
You did not agree to the contract, so it shouldn’t apply to you.
So if I sent you an e-mail that had some business-sensitive material in it (whether or not I put a disclaimer), what are you legally allowed or not allowed to do with that?
Can you re-post it on your Facebook page? Forward it to friends?
I subscribe to some email lists, where there might be several thousand subscribers. Some people post messages to such lists with boiler-plated disclaimers that the message is confidential, etc., etc. – which is stupid, given that the list is archived, and that message can be read by anyone now, or in 100 years time. The problem is people implementing email policies, usually in the private sector, that are going to cover arses, but which really do not protect confidentiality at all. (They might stop the email being used as evidence in court, but even that I doubt.)
Anything that says “confidential” dies screaming in my spam filter.
So… who is she, and what did you send her?
IANAL but this is a civil issue, not a criminal law issue. If you have not signed anything agreeing to keep this data confidential then you don’t have any obligation to do so, particularly when you are getting it unsolicited. The notices are just a polite legalese request. I suppose you could sell it to the National Enquirer.
But legally, what happens if I send you an e-mail with business sensitive material, and you re-post it in public places? Can I bring any legal action against you at all?
This is not based on an actual case, more of a curiosity about those disclaimers in e-mail, which led to “what rights do people have with e-mail I send them” ?
I doubt the disclaimers have all that much weight really, afaik they’re more designed to limit liability of the sender.
You could possibly argue copyright… DMCA time.
Or if the information is used in a malicious way, you could try for some sort of libel based case.
Hopefully some lawyerly types wander in.
You shouldn’t be sending business-sensitive material to someone in the first place, unless they’re already bound by some sort of contract concerning it. And if they are, then what they can do with it depends on what that contract they’ve signed says.
Confidential and Urgent messages go right into the spam file. I do look over the spam box before deleting it, and sometimes I catch a legit email. But people should really take a little more care into crafting their letter titles.
I realize that. But let’s pretend no contract was signed. Let’s pretend someone sent me business sensitive information, or a personal life story, or anything they do not want shared. What are my rights with that e-mail? Am I allowed to post excerpts places? What laws govern my actions with any e-mail someone sent me (sans contract, and whether or not there is a disclaimer)?
There are copyright issues with republishing verbatim (a legal stretch, but not out of the question). However, since the letter’s copyright would not have been registered, the main legal recourse would be that a court would order you to remove it.
The company could sue you for actual monetary damages under copyright. In general, that has only applied to the loss of income from the copyright holder selling their own version of the work. So if a pirated edition sold 2000, you could show that you lost the sale of 2000 copies, and are entitled to those costs. But that’s difficult to prove and few try – they register their copyright routinely in order to get statutory fines. In this case, the lawyers might argue that any income lost is actual damages, but it’d be hard to quantify that, and that’s a bit of a stretch. There’s no way of telling if the court would go along.
Other than copyright, I can’t see any legal issues. Libel isn’t an issue, since the information is truthful.
If someone doesn’t want something shared, they need to have a binding legal agreement in place, or just not share it.
Copyright laws might arguably prevent you from posting long excerpts. But there’s no reason you couldn’t post short excerpts, or paraphrases. They sent it to you; it’s their problem.
If I sign a confidentiality agreement with my client, that “Confidential” notice on the email is a nice way for my client to inform me that it’s invoking our agreement. Without a prior agreement, it doesn’t mean squat.
A local high school had a problem with their fax line. I (my business) kept getting faxes that were not meant for me. They were generally confidential stuff (medical stuff about students) and had a long disclaimer on each about unintended recipients, etc.
I called the school three different times. Each time I was told they would fix the problem.
When it happened again, I called the mother of the student (name and phone number were on the faxed form). I told the mother what I now knew about her high school daughter’s medical file, including information about her birth control. I told her that I was going to post the information online.
She went apeshit on the school and that was the last fax I received!
Sometimes I tag e-mails to clients “Privileged and Confidential” or something similar. (IAAL, by the way.)
Legally, this does not do anything to change the privileged status of the e-mail, which depends on who sends and receives the e-mail and whether it involves a request for or providing legal advice, but it serves to highlight to the client that the e-mail is something that should not be shared. Because the privilege belongs to the client, the client is not barred from sharing it, but I do it to flag to the client that there is something sensitive. (Routine e-mails rarely get such a flag.)
Another reason to do this is that if there is a document request or subpoena under which the document might have to be produced if it is not privileged, it is sign to whoever is reviewing the production that this is a document that should not be produced.
Those confidentiality statements on email are annoying, especially in a long thread of correspondence. It would be nice if people would just clip it off when sending me You-goddamned-Tube videos.
Note: The above represents author’s opinion and, as such, constitutes Intellectual Property. All readers of this posting are proscribed from sharing, disseminating, or publishing this statement of opinion under Code of GiantRat Regulations (CGR) 69, Article B (The Asshole Act).
Bingo
That boilerplate confidentiality statement is not for Pppeople that have not allready signed a NDA. The only reason you see that statement on personal e-mails and public boards is because the email program automatically includes it (at least if they are smart).
I can assure you IP law is fucked up. Even with a NDA, if you do not put that statement there, that information can become public. In fact, if I discuss IP on the phone, I have been instructed to send a follow up email just to remind them that the conversation was under the NDA.