Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Thu, 11 Aug 2011 15:15:00 PDT Michael Costanza http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110805/12274015408/if-you-can-read-this-youre-breaking-law.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110805/12274015408/if-you-can-read-this-youre-breaking-law.shtml NOTE: This e-mail message (including attachments) is subject to attorney-client privilege and contains confidential information intended only for the person(s) to whom this email message is addressed. This e-mail may be covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §2510-2521, which provides criminal penalties for your use of this email without permission. This message may contain Protected Health Information covered under HIPAA Rules and HITECH Standards including, but not limited to, all applicable requirements of the HIPAA Security rule in 45 C.F.R. §§ 164.308, 164.310,164.312 and 164.316, including any amendments thereto. If you have received this e-mail message in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone or e-mail and destroy the original message without making a copy. Now, although I have to admit that I was initially impressed by all those fancy numbers and § symbols, a few things struck me as odd. First of all, if the information is "intended only for the person(s) to whom this email message is addressed," and it was addressed to me, wouldn't that mean it's intended for me? Second, with absolutely no information in the body of the email, other than this warning, how am I supposed to know for sure that it was not intended for me? And, finally, if you mistakenly send someone else's confidential information directly to me (not because of an email server routing error), how is it that I am the one in danger of "criminal penalties" for opening my own mail?

As I have no interest in reading this person's confidential information, I have not opened the attachments and have no plans to do so. And although I'm not even certain a threat like this is enforceable, I will be canceling my email account, destroying my hard drive, and leaving the country for a while. Wish me luck.

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]]> your-mail-is-not-your-own http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110805/12274015408 Thu, 14 Oct 2010 23:11:25 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101001/14083711252/if-even-the-best-legal-minds-don-t-read-boilerplate-contracts-why-are-they-considered-binding.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101001/14083711252/if-even-the-best-legal-minds-don-t-read-boilerplate-contracts-why-are-they-considered-binding.shtml Michael Scott points us to a discussion noting that famed circuit court judge Richard Posner has admitted that when he recently took out a mortgage, he didn't bother reading the legal language, which leads to stories of many other lawyers admitting they don't bother reading the legal language of many of the things they sign. And yet... those things are still considered binding. I think most people realize that the language of such things will almost never actually matter, but of course, when it does matter, it really does matter. And, of course, that leads to a general question: why do we even bother with all this ridiculous legal language if no one's really agreeing to it?

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