E-mail dilemma

CJC

I just received an-mail in error advising me that someone I'd never heard of from some company I'd never heard of was going to be out of his office next week. Attached was the following:

Confidentiality Notice: The information contained in and transmitted with this communication is strictly confidential, is intended only for the use of the intended recipient, and is the property of ********* or its affiliates and subsidiaries. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use of the information contained in or transmitted with the communication or dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited by law. If you have received this communication in error, please immediately return this communication to the sender and delete the original message and any copy of it in your possession.

Now, I would the return communication to the sender as requested but that would require dissemination, distribution, or copying of the communication which, it seems, is prohibited by law. So,I'm in a dilemma as to what to do. Maybe I should just e-mail the guy and get him to ask his company's lawyers to advise me on the best course of action here. Or maybe just a mail saying 'What the f*ck am I doing on your address list, arsehole?'

Decisions, decisions.

mark130273

a blank email with a message asking why you were on the email list?

blobbyh

Interesting one Chris and one which prompted my own question to our IT guy who also writes our company e-mail footers.

Once you've transmitted an outbound e-mail - a globally recognised insecure system anyway - do you still actually retain ownership of the said e-mail? Copyrighted stuff yes, but unprotected facts, opnions and comments etc? Also, many companies say it's their property no matter what but then will alternately say "Any opinions expressed in this mail... etc" are nothing to do with them. Isn't this kind of a contradiction?

After all, in a similar situation, I've been informed that once you place a letter in a post box, you relinquish your ownership, it become the property of the crown and ceases to be yours.

Diannew

CJC wrote: »

I just received an-mail in error advising me that someone I'd never heard of from some company I'd never heard of was going to be out of his office next week. Attached was the following:

Confidentiality Notice: The information contained in and transmitted with this communication is strictly confidential, is intended only for the use of the intended recipient, and is the property of ********* or its affiliates and subsidiaries. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use of the information contained in or transmitted with the communication or dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited by law. If you have received this communication in error, please immediately return this communication to the sender and delete the original message and any copy of it in your possession.

Now, I would the return communication to the sender as requested but that would require dissemination, distribution, or copying of the communication which, it seems, is prohibited by law. So,I'm in a dilemma as to what to do. Maybe I should just e-mail the guy and get him to ask his company's lawyers to advise me on the best course of action here. Or maybe just a mail saying 'What the f*ck am I doing on your address list, arsehole?'

Decisions, decisions.

Sounds a bit dodgy to me.....I don't think I would return it, in case it triggers some sort of virus...........bit like those emails you get from individuals pretending to be from various banks..if you haven't heard of them I think I would just delete it.

CJC

I do think it was a legitimate mistake, the company in question is apparently a major US financial institution. I have no intention of wasting my time replying, I was mostly just amused by the juxtaposition of the overkill of the footer with the banality of the message and, like Robert, intrigued by what actual legal force such messages have.

Anyway,the next e-mail this guy sends me in error might be the company's next quarter's profits forecast :001_smile:

Buff

CJC wrote: »

Anyway,the next e-mail this guy sends me in error might be the company's next quarter's profits forecast :001_smile:

Sort of what happened a couple of months back. I regularly chat with people from one of our major clients in their finance department. My main contact was heading to Egypt for 3 weeks - in which time she passed me through to a new starter in her department.

I more or less told him what I wanted from him and he still managed to send me stuff which related to work carried out by our main competitors .... quality.

Being the gent, I didn't bring his mistake to the forefront - poor sod will have lost his job, but then I was thinking "what if he does this with MY information"... I messaged him back thanking him for letting me have such privelidged information and asked him to be careful he doesn't make the same mistake again.

Made for an interesting read :-)

Jon_1984

We have had similar in the past - my company comes first alphabetically in our industry and a major supplier accidently faxed their entire monthly statement run to us.....we rang up, thanked them for the documents and asked if they wanted us to distribute them correctly on their behalf

CJC

You know, when they ask about how to go about improving data security in the AAT course, 'Don't let stupid people near important data' should be a key recommendation :001_smile: