Re: Avoiding legal email signatures

On Sun, 10 Jun 2007, Andrew Sullivan wrote:

> Moreover, people who are in such environments are often prevented from
> visiting gmail, hotmail, or the other likely suspects in order to send
> their messages in circumvention of corporate policy.

This is all true, but the reality here is that people in such a situation
are usually flat-out violating their corporate policy by posting to the
list at all from inside this kind of company. By allowing it, you're
encouraging them to do something they may very well get into trouble for.
I've watched more than one attempt to sneak open-source source into a
large enterprise get completely blown away because unapproved mailing list
involvement to resolve issues became associated with making corporate
information public.

Ever watched someone get fired for responding to "can you post your config
file?" in an environment where that's a clear violation of corporate
policy? I have.

> What we _could_ do, I suppose, is start mail-writing campaigns to legal
> departments in companies that insist on such disclaimers

The best reaction to this issue is to kick it back with apologies to the
person who wants help. They're in a better position than you to
straighten out the incompatiblity of their corporation with the
requirements of a public mailing list. You may very well be doing them a
favor to point out the concern rather than continuing a dialog with them.

--
* Greg Smith gsmith(at)gregsmith(dot)com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD