

UK MP calls for email disclaimer ban - timthorn
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30710481

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gazrogers
> Sir Alan Duncan said the "meaningless missives" led to "forests' worth of
> paper" being wasted when emails are printed out.

Well stop printing out your sodding emails then, you clown.

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nodata
Is it better for the planet if I buy a tablet which lasts three years and
bring that to the meeting instead?

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icebraining
Why would a tablet only last three years?

In any case, you can simply buy a laptop/tablet hybrid nowadays, instead of
the laptop you'd buy anyway (exceptions made for people who need desktops or
non-hybrid laptops for some reason, but they're an exception).

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pjc50
OS updates either aren't available or refuse to run on it, so it's still
usable but not safe to connect to the internet.

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icebraining
The Surface comes with a guarantee of four years of updates (minimum).

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timmillwood
Thing that bugs me the most about this... ...email has nothing to do with the
web so why bring Tim B-L into it?

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Fastidious
He used it to prove a point. I understood it as "I am proud of Tim B-L, and
what he brought us. Let us be proud British, and not bloody asses, and stop
this disclaimer non-sense."

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rollthehard6
We need remedial ICT classes for politicians taking office. When I read things
like this it makes me wonder how much other legislation is based on bogus
knowledge of politicans of topics I know nothing about myself? One of the few
good things about The House of Lords in the UK is the fact that there are some
people in there with some know how of things outside politics.

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duncanawoods
What's so bogus about it?

Even if they were not printing out emails, the effect of disclaimers to a
thread between staff of a few different companies is appalling. If using short
emails to, say schedule an appointment, it can easily be worse than 1:10 ratio
of signal to noise causing loss of important information.

I definitely support curtailing this nonsense legalism that has also led us to
click through 100 pages of incomprehensible TOS documents. Its pretty clear we
need political intervention to protect companies and their users in a sane
manner compared to the path we are currently on.

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pbhjpbhj
Signature collapsing/removal isn't a thing in their email programs I take it.
Thunderbird has an option to remove sigs on reply - it's a technically solved
problem, it doesn't need a legal solution (that will be impossible to
enforce).

You could do this by having a government standard though - they presumably
have a statement of requirements for basic software (wordproc/email/browser).
Add a requirement that any email program paid for with tax-payers money (which
would include free ones installed or supported by gov workers) allows
signature/banner/disclaimer cropping.

It's telling that when he was in control of a gov department he didn't have
the disclaimer scotched.

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toyg
"The legislation was accepted at first reading, but it is unlikely to become
law in its current form without government support due to a lack of
parliamentary time."

Translated: this Parliament is already over (elections are scheduled in a few
months), so MPs are free to pitch in their headline-grabbing pet-projects,
stuff that has no chance in hell to ever be taken seriously but might help
their campaign prospects.

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georgespencer
Email disclaimers are hokum, legally speaking. They're ordinarily seeking to
impose a contractual obligation unilaterally. Unless the contract has been
freely negotiated, in Europe, a party can't be bound to it.

The Economist covered this in 2011:
[http://www.economist.com/node/18529895](http://www.economist.com/node/18529895)

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masklinn
> Email disclaimers are hokum, legally speaking.

That's his point. They're bullshit and a half, but when emails are printed
(which is more common than you'd think) they still waste paper and ink.

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georgespencer
His point seems to be that it's a waste of ink and paper, not the legal
aspect.

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masklinn
The article implies he did call them "useless", "meaningless missives" and
"sluggish bureaucratic verbiage".

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bbody
Seems to me like this is a problem that could be solved without legislation?

