Misdirected email


While this does seem to be more common with gmail addresses, it’s not solely limited to gmail. I’ve written about this frequently.

There are a lot of cases we hear about where personal information is leaked through misdirected email. Consider how often it happens and no one hears about it.
For marketers, the biggest risk with misdirected email is sending spam to someone who can get that mail blocked by an ISP, major spamfiltering company or blocklist. For companies using email addresses as primary keys for customer databases, the risk is exposing customer information to the wrong people.
I get that address verification is hard. I get it is friction in the signup process. But that shouldn’t really matter when you’re discussing PII.
 

Everything leaks eventually
Experian selling data to identity thieves

Related Posts

Google wiretapping case, what the judge ruled

Yesterday I reported that the judge had ruled on Google’s motion to dismiss. Today I’ll take a little bit deeper look at the case and the interesting things that were in denial of the motion to dismiss.
Google is being sued for violations of federal wiretapping laws, the California invasion of privacy act (CIPA) and wiretapping laws in Florida, Pennsylvania and Maryland. This lawsuit is awaiting class certification for the following groups.

Read More

Recycled Yahoo addresses and PII leaks

Infoweek interviewed a number of people who acquired new Yahoo addresses during Yahoo’s address recycling and reuse process. It seems that at least for some small percentage of former Yahoo users, there is a major risk of information going to the wrong people.

Read More

No expectation of privacy, says Google

I spent yesterday afternoon in Judge Koh’s courtroom listening to arguments on whether or not the class action suit against Google based on their scanning of emails for advertising purposes can go forward. This is the case that made news a few weeks ago because Google stated in their brief that users have “no expectation of privacy” in using online services.
That does appear to be what Google is actually saying, based on the arguments by attorney Whitty Somvichian. He made it clear that Google considers everything that passes through their servers, including the content of emails, covered under “information provided to Google” in the privacy policy. Google is arguing that they can read, scan, and use that content to display ads and anything else they consider to be in the normal course of business.
I have pages and pages of notes but I have some paying work to finish before I can focus on writing up the case. There were multiple reporters and bloggers in the courtroom, but I’ve not found many article. Some I’ve found are:

Read More