Some serious breakthrough recently - we have confirmation that those long legal gibberish signatures are not only annoying, but are also pointless. You've probably received this in the past - "If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager." or "This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed". There are others, like "Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system." Its like recalling an email from an exchange server, sent to non-exchange users - if the email was going to be ignored initially, after the recall - everybody will read it. And what if I don't delete it or I don't notify anybody, then what?

The Economist explains the truth about the "disclaimer" email signatures:

E-mail disclaimers are one of the minor nuisances of modern office life, along with fire drills, annual appraisals and colleagues who keep sneezing loudly. Just think of all the extra waste paper generated when messages containing such waffle are printed. They are assumed to be a wise precaution. But they are mostly, legally speaking, pointless. Lawyers and experts on Internet policy say no court case has ever turned on the presence or absence of such an automatic e-mail footer in America, the most litigious of rich countries.

Many disclaimers are, in effect, seeking to impose a contractual obligation unilaterally, and thus are probably unenforceable. So why do people use them - marketing, making themselves sound important and because others are using it.

Read the Economist article: Spare us the e-mail yada-yada

Notice: Unless you are named "Arnold P. Fasnock", you may read only the "odd numbered words" (every other word beginning with the first) of the message above. If you have violated that, then you hereby owe the sender 10 USD for each even numbered word you have read.