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Ad Blocker Ghostery Celebrates GDPR Day by Revealing Hundreds of User Email Addresses

posted by chromas on Sunday May 27 2018, @06:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the derp dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Fnord666

Ad-blocking tool Ghostery suffered from a pretty impressive, self-inflicted screwup Friday when the privacy-minded company accidentally CCed hundreds of its users in an email, revealing their addresses to all recipients.

Fittingly, the inadvertent data exposure came in the form of an email updating Ghostery users about the company's data collection policies. The ad blocker was sending out the message to affirm its commitment to user privacy as the European Union's digital privacy law, known as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), goes into effect.

The email arrived in inboxes with the subject line "Happy GDPR Day — We've got you covered!" In the body of the email, the company informed users, "We at Ghostery hold ourselves to a high standard when it comes to users' privacy, and have implemented measures to reinforce security and ensure compliance with all aspects of this new legislation."

Source: https://gizmodo.com/ad-blocker-ghostery-celebrates-gdpr-day-by-revealing-hu-1826338313

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  • (Score: 2) by stretch611 on Sunday May 27 2018, @07:34PM (1 child)

    by stretch611 (6199) on Sunday May 27 2018, @07:34PM (#684895)

    It's an easy mistake to make.

    It is an easy mistake to make... for a human.

    However, if you have a list the size of theirs and/or are with their recognition, something like probably isn't done by human.

    This size of a list should be automated, and this is the reason why developers are supposed to test systems.

    This is one of the things that the GDPR tries to stop and they deserve whatever fines are imposed. They have no excuse except their incompetence.

    --
    Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 27 2018, @07:44PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 27 2018, @07:44PM (#684904)

    It's an easy mistake to make.

    It is an easy mistake to make... for a human.

    Why do you think a human was not involved? The mistake could have occurred this way:

    1. Dump email db to exsmell spreadsheet
    2. select all on column containing email addresses
    3. pick copy
    4. switch to draft email window
    5. paste into CC: field by mistake
    6. Press send