

The Register accidentally emails 46,524 user details to 3,521 of them - ethereal
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/24/email_blunder/

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tejaswiy
Not that it fixes things, but their response came off as being surprisingly
honest. Good on them.

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rflrob
The first step on the road to recovery is admitting you have a problem. I
think the fact that they're so honest and willing to do so bodes well for
their likelihood of fixing whatever error caused this to happen.

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astrodust
The next step is to bulk CC all 3,521 of them and ask very politely to delete
the offending email.

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FuzzyDunlop
Not to excuse the error, but one can argue that at least it was just names and
emails and not something more sensitive. For the best part unscrupulous firms
you've signed up to at one point or another have already sold that email on to
dozens of third party marketing firms. Or it's been leaked by others that
haven't taken steps to protect their data. Or otherwise the company requesting
your email has taken the liberty of spamming it with unrelated guff you're
probably not interested in (music industry mailing lists are great for this).

The only real protection against it is to keep cycling your email address so
the old ones become invalid (to you at least).

It's an odd mistake to have been made though, but without the details of that
it's pointless to make assumptions about their system.

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kahirsch
ICO = Information Commissioner's Office, apparently.

<http://www.ico.gov.uk/>

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Commissioner%27s_Of...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Commissioner%27s_Office)

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billpg
Is there any way of knowing if I'm one of the 46,524?

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namank
Very good question. There should be.

You should email them.

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narad
They have published their email to vent. You can try that, but I am thinking
that you won't get an answer by email.

Note to self: When in hurry, don't do any important tasks.

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shinratdr
That was a surprisingly honest & straightforward article for The Register.
Hopefully they'll embrace this style in the future once in a while instead of
leaping head-first into click bait rag territory as usual.

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nknight
> _because someone was in a hurry._

In places I've worked, this is easily the direct cause of 75% or more of
operational errors (including my own), and an indirect cause (e.g. via
outdated or inadequate documentation, poor labeling, etc.) of most of the
rest.

I've heard of occasional case studies along these lines, but I'm wondering
what direct research is out there about the psychological factors that lead to
bypassing normal processes and procedures.

~~~
krobertson
I agree. I find most of my own mistakes are from a sense of urgency, and find
I work better when I put intentional effort into laying things out ahead of
time. The psychological factors would be interesting to know, I agree.

Would say more, but got to roll out some changes to our production environment
and need to be focused on it so I don't do something wrong. :)

