An Official Apology
Thursday, September 2, 2010 at 8:55AM 
Businesses are founded and built on the quality of relationships made and trust earned between companies and individuals.Yesterday this basic requirement was compromised.
At approximately 11am we accidently made visible the email addresses of one of our six databases. A mistake I have witnessed many other companies make on dozens of previous occasions. At no time did it cross my mind to try and take advantage of such a situation. Over the next hour, 2 or 3 people were good enough to bring this genuine mistake to our attention. At just before 1pm, I sent out a note to all recipients asking people to show respect, common sense and discretion towards this data. A hornet's nest then developed whilst I spent the afternoon in a client meeting. A handful of unprofessional individuals took it upon themselves to attempt to make capital from our error by illegally spamming about their services. This is a wholly unacceptable situation. The confusion was compounded by individuals genuinely trying to remove themselves from this hell and those who 'accidentally' copied their corporate details to all on the list whilst undertaking this task.
We are ultimately responsible for this issue for which we unreservedly apologise. I hope the unscrupulous companies who saw fit to take advantage of our difficult situation will realise they caused irrepairable damage to their own now discredited brands.
I would now ask for calm.
Reader Comments (1)
Hi Alistair,
Your apology is accepted, although not needed for us mature business professionals who chose to ignore the follow-up emails.
Look, anyone can make the same mistake and such a simple mistake can lead to a small minority of people making a mountain out of a mole hill. Who cares that you sent the email exposing list of email addresses, it is hardly criminal, and you're not the first, or last to fall into this trap.
The people who should apologize are the fools who decided to try and make a quick sad advertising pun or worse, the one's who chose to "reply to all" and asked to be removed from the mailing list.
Get over it people and give the guy a break. Yesterday's news is now today's chip papers!
All the Best
Phil