Common Folk Collective

You know the email signature that you often see something along the lines of:
“Disclaimer: This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately if you have received this email by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. Finally, the recipient should check this email and any attachments for the presence of viruses. The company accepts no liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by this email.”

It is complete bullshit and you should treat it as such. If you’re sending confidential information in an unencrypted manner you are goddamn negligent and it’s not my fault you don’t understand the technology you are using. Could you imagine if you put the same disclaimer at the end of phone messages or conversations in general?

Well apparently the some of the employees at Goldman Sachs aren’t very tech savvy and have used what I imagine is their immense legal department, shit tons of cash and market influence to convince Google to literally delete a message out of someone’s inbox.

This sets a horrible precedent for Gmail users as Google is now willing to delete messages from people’s inboxes without their knowledge.

If you misaddress an email the protocol should be to send a follow up message saying “Hey, I fucked up and sent you a message I shouldn’t have, it contains information that I’d rather not release, would you be so kind as to ignore/delete it and as an apology I’ll buy you a fancy dinner.”

Not really.