Research firm emails 20,000 addresses in the clear
Don't they teach BCC at PR school?
Posted in Management, 12th August 2008 07:02 GMT
Watch Now : Virtual Machine Movement with Hyper-V
We've almost got bored of stories about people sending emails to lots of subscribers without using the BCC field, but not when the mail is sent to 20,000 people.
Today's doofus is investor research company Digital Look. It sent a mail yesterday morning which revealed 22,129 email addresses. Whoops.
Two hours later Digital Look sent an apology email and asked users to delete the offending missive. The email reads:
It has come to our notice that a small number of people received an erroneous email from us this morning containing a random list of email addresses.We are extremely sorry for the human error that caused this problem and we are currently taking steps to ensure that this can never happen again. We take your privacy very seriously and our team are working hard to put in additional safety measures right now.
Pointy hat and corner-standing duty for someone, we think.
The mail continued reassuringly:
The other investors who received the email were all private investors who use the Digital Look website, and I would like to think that, like yourself, they are sensible and responsible people and won't misuse the email details that they received.
Such faith in users is truly touching in this day and age.
The email also said only a small number of people received the mail. We could of course test this by sending our own email and waiting for bounce-backs, but that would probably annoy a lot of people.
The mail ends with a further apology and an address for formal complaints. ®
Watch Now : Virtual Machine Movement with Hyper-V
COMMENTS
Reply to all>
Please remove me from this mailing list.
>Me too!
>And me!
>Me aswell
>Will Everyone STOP Doing Reply To All
>Whyis everyone emiling me?
>Hey stoopid, you spelt whyis and emailing wrong!
>Please take me off this distribution list
.
.
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and so on. Ain't Users wonderful??
Thunderbird isn't that hit for BCCs either
Slagging off Outlook is all very well, but it's not as if it's the only one that doesn't handle BCCs in a totally straightforward manner.
@Pegasus
Try running it under VirtualBox? If you would like to switch to Linux at least you can fire up Pegasus without having to reboot. Works for me with MS Money...
Pegasus
Sadly, Pegasus is Windows-only these days. It's one of the barriers to me completeiy switching to Linux.
And Wine has glitches in it that make Pegasus awkward to use under Linux. Pegasus uses daughter windows extensively, and Wine replaces a lot of "close this window" menu items with "close the program" ones. Evidently Wine does not fully understand all the intricacies window usage under (ahem!) Windows.
I've asked the Pegasus folks about creating a version for Linux, but no luck there. Too bad; I've been using Pegasus since 1996 and simply refuse to change away from such a good program.
Spam filters?
That kind of email won't get through any self respecting spam filter. So I guess they figured it out when they got 20,000 bounce messages.
That would be a fair number of bounces to click delete in MS Outlook...
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