The best are the emails with mangled HTML which just cannot be rendered properly in KMail. I don’t know which client produces those but I get them every once in a while and they suck.

I love Kontact and K-Mail. =)

Kmail shows me a box on top of the email which says “to view the HTML click here” and then “to display stupid images click here, but I wouldn’t bother if I were you”.

Company logo though - no! Unprofessional! If you include an image in your sig your email is automatically sent as HTML or worse (shudder) a word attachment. This means it will either look like crap in Mutt/Pine and Kmail or in worse case scenario will force me to:

1. Download the .dat attachment file
2. Extract it using ktnef or similar tool
3. Open your email in Open Office
4. Go back to my email client to reply

Ugh! It’s just inconsiderate, and don’t say “get a better email client” because this is precisely the attitude of Outlook users which prompted this post.

Also I have yet to see anyone going “Oh no! I can’t forward you this email because it has a disclaimer”. To dissuade someone from forwarding the email to my enemies, that someone would first have to read the disclaimer. And I can guarantee you that 99.99999% of people stop reading as soon as they hit that “NOTICE OF CONFIDENTIALITY” heading. To me this is basically an End of File indicator.

I think quotes should be banned.

A simple company logo is acceptable.

Disclaimers do serve a purpose. They might dissuade someone from forwarding your email to one of your enemies. Agree that it has no legal weight.

So thats another acceptable piece of information to be included.

The worst legalise signature I’ve ever seen is the following (the users had no control over this, and I have not touched the formatting except to add dots on blank lines so they are preserved in the comment)

This email originates from AXA Services Limited (reg. no. 446043) which is a service company for AXA UK plc (reg. no. 2937724) and the following companies within the AXA UK plc Group:
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AXA Insurance Plc (reg. no. 932111)
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AXA Insurance UK Plc (reg. no. 78950)
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AXA General Insurance Limited (reg. no. 141885)
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All of the above mentioned companies are registered in England and have their registered office at 5 Old Broad Street, London EC2N 1AD, England.
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AXA Insurance UK plc is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
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This message and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this in error, you should not disseminate or copy this email. Please notify the sender immediately and delete this email from your system.
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Please also note that any opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The AXA UK Plc Group.
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Email transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure, or error free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, late in arriving or incomplete as a result of the transmission process. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message which arise as a result of email transmission.
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Finally, the recipient should check this email and any attachments for viruses. The AXA UK Plc Group accept no liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by this email.

This went out on every email sent by that company.
Thankfully they’ve now improved it by removing all the empty lines.