Many companies have a policy of
putting Internet E-mail Confidentiality Disclaimers at the end of their
emails. This is not allowed under IEEE rules of openness.
To this end, all 802 chairs have been asked to remove
participation in a reflector if your emails contain the statement. May
we suggest that if you are effected you might start by talking to your
IT department about removing any statements from those emails that go
to the IEEE reflectors. Alternatively use an external email account under
your control.
Below is an extract from the IEEE 802 Chair on this
subject which details the policy.
802 Policy regarding restrictive notices:IEEE 802 operates in an open manner. To
that end, no material submitted to IEEE 802, or any of its sub-groups,
will be accepted or considered if that material contains any statement
that places any burden on the recipient(s) with respect to
confidentiality or copyright. This policy specifically includes e-mail.
Any material that has such a "Confidentiality
Disclaimer" on it is not acceptable. The purpose of such a disclaimer
is to transfer some level of responsibility to the recipient for
deciding whether or not it is appropriate to disclose, use,
disseminate, copy, post or otherwise distribute, the material.
IEEE 802 accepts no such responsibility. The most
effective way for 802 to decline any such responsibility is to not
accept material with such a disclaimer.
Correspondence with 802 groups will not be
confidential. It is very likely that any such correspondence (in
addition to being discussed in open meetings) will be posted in the
open portion of our web-site and thus will be disclosed, disseminated
and distributed. Anyone who wishes to correspond with an 802 group must
understand and accept this as a condition of sending us any
documentation. Inclusion of any restrictive notice is contrary to, and
negates, any indication of acceptance of the IEEE 802 policy of
openness.
Copyrighted works may be accepted as submissions for
inclusions in drafts only with an appropriate release. Copyrighted
works may be referenced in drafts and presentations if they are
available on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.