Editing Signature block (section)

===Email signatures in business===
Businesses often automatically append signature blocks to messages—or have policies mandating a certain style. Generally they resemble standard [[business card]]s in their content—and often in their presentation—with company logos and sometimes even the exact appearance of a business card. In some cases, a [[vCard]] is automatically attached.

In addition to these standard items, [[email disclaimer]]s of various sorts are often automatically appended. These are typically couched in legal jargon, but it is unclear what weight they have in law, and they are routinely lampooned.<ref>{{citation |url=http://www.economist.com/node/18529895|newspaper=[[The Economist]] |title=Spare us the e-mail yada-yada |page=73 |date=April 9, 2011}}</ref><ref>{{citation |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/05/18/readers_letters_the_email_disclaimer/ |title=The Email Disclaimer Awards 2001 |author=Lester Haines |date=18 May 2001 |journal=[[The Register]]}}</ref>

Business emails may also use some signature block elements mandated by local laws:
* Germany requires companies to [[Impressum|disclose]] their company name, registration number, place of registration etc. in email signatures, in any business-related emails.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://theotherthomasotter.wordpress.com/2007/02/09/german-bureaucracy-coming-to-your-email-now/| title = "German bureaucracy, coming to your e-mail now"| date = 9 February 2007}}</ref>
* Ireland's [[Director of Corporate Enforcement]] requires all limited companies operating websites to disclose such information in their emails.<ref>[http://www.odce.ie/en/media_information_notices_article.aspx?article=c951ecd7-f186-41b4-bbbd-3e5d6db81d0b "Irish ODCE Information Notice I/2007/2 - Disclosure of Company Particulars in E-Communications and on Websites"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100224073249/http://www.odce.ie/en/media_information_notices_article.aspx?article=c951ecd7-f186-41b4-bbbd-3e5d6db81d0b |date=2010-02-24 }}</ref> 
* The UK's ECommerce Regulations (reflecting EU law) require this information in all emails from limited companies.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.out-law.com/page-431| title = "ECommerce Regulations"|author=Pinsent Masons| date = 16 June 2023}}</ref> In England and Wales the case of Mehta v J Pereira Fernandes clarified that an [[email address]] header added to an email by the email application did not count as a signature for legal purposes, but {{quote|A party can sign a document for the purposes of Section 4 [of the [[Statute of Frauds]]] by using his full name or his last name prefixed by some or all of his initials or using his initials, and possibly by using a [[pseudonym]] or a combination of letters and numbers (as can happen for example with a Lloyds slip scratch), providing always that whatever was used was inserted into the document in order to give, and with the intention of giving, authenticity to it.<ref>Nilesh Mehta v J Pereira Fernandes SA: ChD 7 Apr 2006, quoted in Swarbrick, D., [https://swarb.co.uk/mehta-v-j-pereira-fernandes-sa-chd-7-apr-2006/ Mehta v J Pereira Fernandes SA: ChD 7 Apr 2006], updated 19 January 2022, accessed 21 January 2023</ref>}}

While criticized by some {{who|date=January 2023}} as overly bureaucratic, these regulations only extend existing laws for paper business correspondence to email.