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Do you trust Seesmic with your data?

by Antony Bailey on February 5, 2010

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Chances are if you are a fequent user of Twitter, you have come across Seesmic. So this post will be important to you. This is the story of how Seesmic, fail to keep your data secure and share it with anyone they feel might want your personal information.

How it Began

Recently on Twitter there was a tweet from Seesmic that read:

"If you want Seesmic stickers, just email kathleen  at seesmic dot com we will send you some  "

Those who know me, know I’m always happy to have something free and well I did like Seesmic.

The Mistake

Last night I recieved an email from Kathleen, that reads*:

"What's your mailing address?

Kathleen

On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 2:23 PM, Angela <xxxxx@xxxxx>  wrote:

Hi!! I want Seesmic stickers!

Thanks!!

Angela

On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 2:23  PM, Aiman <xxxxx@xxxxx>  wrote:

I would like some Seesmic Stickers

Thanks

 From,

 Aiman

"Man  cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of  the shore."

 -André Gide

On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 2:35 PM, Antony  Bailey <xxxxx@xxxxx>  wrote:

Can I have some pwwweeeaaase?

 Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device"

*I have removed people’s names and email.

Discussion with Seesmic

@PartTimeLegend

"So  @seesmic emailed asking for my mailing address. I got several people's emails in  the body. I trust you with my data now, honest."

@AskSeesmic

"@PartTimeLegend Thanks for  following up we'll be sure to keep your trust   thanks again ^cw"

@PartTimeLegend

"@askseesmic I think you missed my point. The email I got, has other people's emails  in. So you've shared their data directly with me."

@AskSeesmic

"@PartTimeLegend what email  did you receive from us and which one of our team members sent it to  you? let me know thanks! ^cw"

@PartTimeLegend

"@askseesmic I emailed for stickers. Kathleen Murray, emailed me with others emails  in it. I got an apology, spelt my name wrong. #seesmic"

The Apology

I soon recieved an email from Kathleen, that says:

"Anthony,

Sorry for the messy email !! I  have corrected it.

Kathleen"

Is this meant to make it okay? We leaked your data, but we’ve fixed it now?

Also, when trying to apologise to a client. Try typing their name properly.

What now?

I’m bringing this to your attention, because I no longer think Seesmic are a reliable company with your data. I hope this helps you make your own decisons.

language

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Tagged as: Blog hosting services, Blog software, Data Protection, Human Interest, Labor, Online social networking, Seesmic, Twitter, Twitter Inc, Web 2.0, World Wide Web

PartTimeLegend
Hello Loic,

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I am leaving this post to the reader to decide if they feel they can trust you in an informed way.

The fact remains, that you did leak data. Data that your Privacy Policy, would probably say you would keep safe (assuming you had one http://seesmic.com/docs/Privacy.html).

In this instance, the only data leaked as some names and emails. Therefore no real harm is done.
The failure to adhear to basic data protection rules, is what shocked me. You have people register accounts, and save more than just email for that person. You could easily leak this in the same way.

Everyone knows, how to handle email and how to prevent data leaks like this. However your company failed to protect my data, and that of the others contained within this email.

To claim that 500 emails, is a bombardment and to claim human error as a viable defence is in my opinion a weak one.

As you say, Kathleen is your Office Manager. Surely, Management should take responsibility for their own actions.

I assume you have dealt with the matter internally, and the persons responsible have been reprimanded.
I also hope you plan to introduce processes to prevent leaks like this in future.
Loic Le Meur
Hello Antony,

Kathleen, our office manager, who made that mistake, had to deal with like 500 requests of stickers, bombarded by email, including yours.

To be nice with our users and our community, instead of trying to automate this we went through them and sent them manually one by one.

Kathleen setup canned responses in gmail to help answer all of them and obviously made a mistake that went to less than 5 people, including you, and apologized.

While I am sorry this happened and can't care more about our reputation regarding data, I think posting this to warn people if they can trust us is not very fair, a human mistake sending an email is always possible I think, you might want to understand that.

It has absolutely nothing to do with our software quality and the way we manage our users data, we were just trying to send you a sticker quickly, I understand you were surprised and regret, but I don't think we deserve this post.