But these appear because the legal Departments or Advisor's have instructed the companies to implement them so that if the e-mail does go to the wrong place the person who receives it is aware that they shouldn't be showing it around or sharing it with others.
What this does is with Instant communication allows the sender to claim that they have done everything possible to make sure that the sent item arrives at the correct place and that if it goes astray the receiver has been instructed to delete it or whatever is in the footer.
As for it being legal I'm not sure as to date this has never been tested in a Court but sent E-Mail has been tested in many Courts and now is considered to hold the same provisions as a Letter. Many people have been fired over the contents of an e-mail and some have actually ended up in jail.
Currently I believe that there is a case going on here where someone sent an e-mail to their subordinates and a copy of that was used to jail the person who sent the e-mail. Some time latter it was discovered that the Crown didn't have the right to charge this person with any crime as they where simply doing their job and where protected from illegal acts by the job, However as the e-mail in questing had one of these footers on it I now understand that the person who leaked the E-Mail is now under investigation for breaching an [b]Implied Agreement[/b] by forwarding on the e-mail without authorisation.
I don't know how that will work out but I wouldn't want to be the one who tests the thing in a court. You need to apply common sense to everything if there is personal information that could be damaging to someone within the e-mail it's only common sense to destroy it and maybe notify the sender that you received in by mistake, this depends on what is asked by the contents of the Footer. However if it's a joke it would be accepted that you are not harming anyone by passing it on.
It really depends on the contents of the e-mail.
Col
