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From: allynh@ucbvax.ARPA (Allyn Hardyck)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Disclaimers
Message-ID: <9784@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 8-Aug-85 19:52:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.9784
Posted: Thu Aug  8 19:52:30 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 02:18:21 EDT
Reply-To: allynh@ucbvax.UUCP (Allyn Hardyck)
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 21

I'm sure there's already been a discussion on this that I somehow missed so
maybe someone can send me the gist of it, otherwise..

Disclaimers are becoming more and more widespread, either with a semi-humorous
or matter-of-fact style, from mostly company machines.  Now there are two
reasons for their existence that I can see:  

1)  People are somehow becoming conscientious of their postings and voluntarily
    disavow the company's knowledge of their actions.  This I doubt (pardon
    my scepticism).

2)  The companies are (politely?) asking that people put it in their messages
    (I can just see a default .disclaimer file) to prevent becoming part of
    the latest wave of multimillion-dollar lawsuits by someone taking offense
    at some random posting.  While a safe move, it seems to me to be a clear
    violation of personal rights - who are they to say what you put in your
    letters?  And hold some punishment over your head if you fail to?  I
    personally doubt a disclaimer would stop anyone from including a company
    in a libel suit or whatever.

allyn