zine which covers Internet privacy suffered an accidental case of exposure - it exposed dozens of subscriber names and addresses Monday morning by mistake, the kind of mistake it usually criticizes.
CNET says PrivacyPlace sent a newsletter to about 79 subscribers telling them about articles and updates to its Web site - but instead of blind carbon copies to each recipient, the company inadvertently listed names and addresses in the "to" field.
"All I can say is I screwed up," PrivacyPlace editor Tom Maddox, who sent out the e-mail, tells CNET. "Thank God the list was not larger at this point." PrivacyPlace is a year-old start-up, but CNET says a number of larger companies had similar problems earlier this year with mass e-mailings.
For example, in April, Nissan inadvertently exposed the e-mail addressed of about 24,000 potential customers, CNET says. In the same month, AT&T accidentally exposed 1,800 addresses - and PrivacyPlace, ordinarily, would be watching such gaffes and wondering about them.
Maddox tells CNET he manually sent the e-mail to users signed up to receive PrivacyPlace update, using the popular Eudora program. PrivacyPlace plans to use mailing list software in the future.
After CNET itself told Maddox of the problem, he e-mailed the recipients and apologized for his "inadvertent but somewhat ghastly error."
