This message was sent by Someone, it is STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL and is solely for the individual or organisation to whom it is addressed. It may contain PRIVILEGED and CONFIDENTIAL information. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication and its contents is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication and its contents in error, please notify us at Some email address and delete it and any copies from your computer.
Does anyone ever pay any attention to these disclaimers? Has anyone ever proved whether they are legally enforceable?
If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication and its contents is strictly prohibited.
So If I am the intended recipient then I’m not being notified of the above and I can do what I like with it? Because I’d really like to post the message I got and the response I sent back (which hasn’t, so far, produced any sort of follow up). Ah f**kit, you know me, I’ll post it anyway. Just give them a couple more days to take the opportunity to make fools of themselves.
Caveat: I don’t know if these have ever been tested in court, I’m no legal expert, this is for physical letters rather than emails and my memory may be wrong
With a letter sent to someone else the physical letter becomes the property of the person it is sent to but the content of the letter is protected by copyright and remains the property of the author. That’s why when you see books of the correspondence of famous people (especially those still alive or only recently dead) you often get only the letter they sent and not what the other correspondent sent to them. However it becomes more complicated because there are situations, like demonstratable public interest or when the writer would expect it to be published, where a letter can be published.
Well, they are definitely spammers and possibly but not definitely scammers, so a decent case could be made for public interest.
However, my reply contains enough context without any direct quotes so I’ll just post that.