Spirit Post

I received a phone call this morning about a blog I’m involved with called Spirit Post. The point of the call was to get an email, deemed confidential by the caller, taken off the site. I’m not certain his claim that I legally needed to take it down was valid, but it didn’t matter enough to me to argue that point. When I later contacted the author of the post, we were in agreement that the old post wasn’t worth fighting over.

It did make me wonder if the notes on the bottom of many emails really mean anything, legally. If you send me an email with a note that says I cannot share it, but we don’t have any official agreement that the email or content is covered by, does that note mean anything? Can I post something that says any email sent to me can be made public and have that statement supercede the note on the bottom of an email.

If the note does hold up who is in trouble? Let say a confidential email is sent from Amy to Brian. Brian then sends Amy’s email to me without the note saying it’s confidential and should not be shared. If I make it public am I in trouble or is Brian? Or is it both of us?