Stephen J. Wilcox wrote:
Howevers its curious that signatures such as this claiming to be confidential are posted to a list which is very much public and archived in several public websites.. not sure how right it is to autoappend them to all your mails as well as the private ones!
There is a current belief (IANAL) that once you publicly post messages with such a disclaimer, the disclaimer will be unenforceable in court thereafter.
I.E. John Doe posts something to public mailing list with the usual legalese disclaimer. I read John's posts, and realize that his disclaimer has no meaning- he has intended for the general public to see his communication and has authorized everyone explicitly. How can John later claim, if I inadvertantly received a misdirected private communication, that I was not authorized, since he has previously given blanket authorization to the public at large to read (some) communications?
This might seem like splitting hairs, but I bet a good lawyer can make a whole case out of it.
