New York Times Accidentally Emails 9 Million People, Promises It Isn’t Spam
A staffer at the New York Times had an “oops” moment on Wednesday when they accidentally sent an email to 9 million New York Times readers instead of the few hundred the email was meant for.
At first the New York Times called the emails accidental “spam” but later said the message was only meant to go out to a few hundred people who had recently chosen to cancel its home delivery service. Instead the email was sent to anyone who had ever provided an email to the New York Times for any reason.
Almost immediately after the New York Times made its announcement fears began to surface that the “spam” came after recipients’ security was breached by a hacker, allowing them to steal user information.
The security breach concern was valid as the company’s email provider Epsilon had been hacked earlier in the year, a fact that led many industry analysts to suspect that the new spam messages were part of a phishing scheme.
A spokeswomen for the paper quickly revealed:
“We regret that the error was made, but no one’s security has been compromised.”
The New York Times has apologized and promises that no information provided to the company was used erroneously.
Here’s a copy of the exact message that was sent out to readers:
From: The New York Times
To:
Subject: Important information regarding your subscription
Date: Dec 28, 2011 12:03 PMDear Home Delivery Subscriber,
Our records indicate that you recently requested to cancel your home delivery subscription. Please keep in mind when your delivery service ends, you will no longer have unlimited access to NYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps.
We do hope you’ll reconsider.
As a valued Times reader we invite you to continue your current subscription at an exclusive rate of 50% off for 16 weeks. This is a limited-time offer and will no longer be valid once your current subscription ends.*
Continue your subscription and you’ll keep your free, unlimited digital access, a benefit available only for our home delivery subscribers. You’ll receive unlimited access to NYTimes.com on any device, full access to our smartphone and iPad® apps, plus you can now share your unlimited access with a family member.†
To continue your subscription call 1-877-698-0025 and mention code 38H9H (Monday–Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. E.D.T.).
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