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It is supposed to be interpreted as “The views expressed are mine and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer”.

there is nothing more pointless than an received in error disclaimer.

They can just insert these things when needed right?

Luckily we don’t use disclaimers but I do receive some mails with disclaimers in them. The disclaimer of Google got my attention a month ago. Keeping it light by mixing ‘I made an error’ with legal in a nice tone of voice, topped up with a bit of recruitment.
If people keep using them – which I do understand because when someone is being stupid, lazy or ignorant they might stand stronger from a legal perspective when the recipient decides to release this info – I would rather read something like this (if I read them):

“Wow you have made it down to my disclaimer, congratulations! It’s not a lot of text so please feel free to read it. Google regards the contents of this
e-mail as being confidential. If it is not meant for you please tell me about my goof up and delete the e-mail. Also be aware that Google does not enter into any legally binding obligations by way of an e-mail conversation. We
only do so by way of agreements that have been laid down on paper and bear the cool stamp of our legal partment. These agreements should also have been signed by the appropriate Google director. On a lighter note, I have a lot
of fun working for Google. Did you know that Google Nederland has recently been elected ‘Greatest Place to Work’ for 2008? If you are interested please
do have a look at our current job openings at http://www.google.nl/jobs.”

Anyone working with personal information, protected information, novel intellectual property, etc. doesn’t want themselves, their employer or their clients to be stung further down the line due to inaproppropriate dissemination of such information. Disclaimers, if nothing else, at least display the intent of privacy/protection of such information. To my mind to anyone working in any field dealing with the above sources of information disclaimers are potentially useful, particularly whilst there remains a relatively low precedence for the significance of email conversations in the court of law.

In my line of work, it would be totally soul-destroying if I were to submit a patent application on a novel idea or invention and this application failed, undoing years of hard work, because someone who I had disclosed this idea to via email had then forwarded this email or further disclosed the information. By including a disclaimer in any such communications, if nothing else, this would at least show the information was intended to go no further, and to no one else other than, the recipient. Without such evidence one would be powerless to make a counter-claim. In the U.K. the data protection act makes such disclaimers essential for organisations such as the National Health Service.

Some information as to why disclaimers might be used can be found here: http://www.emaildisclaimers.com/