经济学人107:腾回我们的电邮空间

 　　Business Legal disclaimers Spare us the e-mail yada-yada

　　商业 合法的免责声明 腾回我们的电邮空间

　　Automatic e-mail footers are not just annoying. They are legally useless

　　自动附加电子邮件页脚，真让人讨厌，法律上还没啥用呢

　　"IF THIS e-mail is received in error, notify the sender immediately."

　　"如果电邮被误收，请马上通知发件人。""电邮没有建立代理-委托的关系。"

　　"This e-mail does not create an attorney-client relationship."

　　"任何关于电邮的税务咨询不是以避免国内税法处罚为目的。"

　　"Any tax advice in this e-mail is not intended to be used for the purpose of avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code."

　　无论电邮的信息是多么简短和琐碎，

　　Many firms—The Economist¹ included—automatically append these sorts of disclaimers to every message sent from their e-mail servers, no matter how brief and trivial the message itself might be.

　　大部分企业（包括《经济学人》）都会自动在电邮服务器中的所有邮件中附加各式各样的免责声明。

　　E-mail disclaimers are one of the minor² nuisances of modern office life, along with fire drills, annual appraisals³ and colleagues who keep sneezing loudly.

　　电邮免责声明是现代办公室生活中的小骚扰之一，其它骚扰则是火警演戏、年度评比和同事大声连续打喷嚏。

　　Just think of all the extra waste paper generated when messages containing such waffle are printed.

　　试想想，信息中含有多余的话句，还被打印出来了，多浪费纸张啊。

　　They are assumed to be a wise precaution.

　　而且，免责声明还被认为是一种明智的预防措施。

　　But they are mostly, legally speaking, pointless.

　　然而，从法律上说，这些声明大多是没意义的。

　　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.

　　互联网政策方面的律师和专家们表示，富裕国家中最爱诉讼的美国， 也还没有哪个诉案是由这种自动的电邮页脚的存在与否引起的。

　　Many disclaimers are, in effect, seeking to impose a contractual obligation unilaterally, and thus are probably unenforceable.

　　实际上，大部分免责声明都在争取利用单方契约义务，最终可能导致条款无法执行。

　　This is clear in Europe, where a directive from the European Commission tells the courts to strike out any unreasonable⁴ contractual obligation on a consumer if he has not freely negotiated it.

　　在这方面，欧洲做得非常清晰。欧洲委员会向法院下指令，要求严打针对那些不给予消费者自由谈判权利的、不合理的契约义务。

　　And a footer stating that nothing in the e-mail should be used to break the law would be of no protection to a lawyer or financial adviser⁵ sending a message that did suggest something illegal.

　　这些页脚声称电子邮件中没有违法内容；另外，对于律师和财务顾问而言，它们也不会有保障性，也不会发信息告知人们什么是非法的。

　　So why are the disclaimers there?

　　那么，免责声明是干什么用的？

　　Company lawyers often insist on them because they see others using them.

　　企业的律师总会坚持使用免责声明，因为他们见其它公司也在使用。

　　As with Latin vocabulary and judges' robes, once something has become a legal habit it has a tendency to stick.

　　与拉丁词汇和法官的长袍一样，一旦某行为成为一种法律习惯，该行为就会被继续坚持下去。

　　Might they at least remind people to behave sensibly?

　　至少，这些声明可以让人们理智行动吧？

　　Michael Overly, a lawyer for Foley & Lardner in Los Angeles, thinks not: the proliferation of predictable yada-yada at the bottom of messages means that people have long since stopped paying any attention to it.

　　洛杉矶富理达律师事务所的律师迈克尔?殴弗利可不这么认为：那些在邮件信息底部的唠叨条款的扩散，意味着人们早已停止对其关注了。

1 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

2 minor   

adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修

参考例句：

• The young actor was given a minor part in the new play.年轻的男演员在这出新戏里被分派担任一个小角色。
• I gave him a minor share of my wealth.我把小部分财产给了他。

3 appraisals   

估计，估量，评价( appraisal的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He had read many detailed critical appraisals of her work. 他读了许多详细评论她的作品的文章。
• The English themselves are somewhat insular in their literary appraisals. 英国人评价自己的文学，也不免有偏狭处。

4 unreasonable   

adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的

参考例句：

• I know that they made the most unreasonable demands on you.我知道他们对你提出了最不合理的要求。
• They spend an unreasonable amount of money on clothes.他们花在衣服上的钱太多了。

5 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。