Do You Need Email Disclaimers on Your Emails?

You’ve probably seen an email disclaimer hanging out at the bottom of an email in the email signature.

But what is it for? What sort of function does it serve?

Well, an email disclaimer usually has some sort of legal purpose to it. If it doesn’t have a legal purpose, then it has a marketing message behind it.

However, the most common email disclaimers that you have probably been those are those stating that an email may be confidential and no part of that email should be duplicated. You may also see something regarding the views expressed by others in the email not representative of the views of the company.

For marketing purposes, the email disclaimer may include something regarding the company’s particulars. This can reside by itself or be a part of a legal disclaimer within an email. It more or less depends on what the functions of your business are and whether or not you really need a disclaimer to protect anything. Some companies do not need them, but some sort of disclaimer can project some kind of professional image.

What are some reasons to include an email disclaimer?

• To prevent breach of confidentiality. Information may be intended for the recipient. If that information is leaked, they could get into trouble.
• Virus transmission is another issue. It is very easy to mistakenly send a virus in an email and this could actually get your company sued. If you have a disclaimer that says the email could possibly contain a virus and that the recipient is responsible for scanning for viruses.
• Companies are liable for the content of the emails sent by their employees. However, companies are unable to monitor every single email that comes through. Sending a disclaimer regarding this can keep the company from being held liable for the content of some emails.

These are just some of the reasons as to why email disclaimers may be necessary in email footers.

As for where you can get effective email signatures to display your email signatures containing your disclaimers, you can check out WiseStamp, www.wisestamp.com, and get them that way. What WiseStamp is, is a Firefox extension that adds customized email signatures to your Gmail, Hotmail, yahoo, or AOL Mail signature. You can create multiple signatures so that you can choose which is appropriate for the particular email you are sending. This makes creating an attractive email signature a lot easier because there are email signature templates and many other tools that can be used.

So if you need an attractive signature with an email disclaimer included, you now know that it isn’t that difficult. You might as well go ahead and cover yourself at every angle to make sure sending an email is something you don’t have to worry about.