The Register accidentally emails 46,524 user details to 3,521 of them (opens in new tab)

Is there any way of knowing if I'm one of the 46,524?

Not that it fixes things, but their response came off as being surprisingly honest. Good on them.

> because someone was in a hurry.

In places I've worked, this is easily the direct cause of 75% or more of operational errors (including my own), and an indirect cause (e.g. via outdated or inadequate documentation, poor labeling, etc.) of most of the rest.

I've heard of occasional case studies along these lines, but I'm wondering what direct research is out there about the psychological factors that lead to bypassing normal processes and procedures.

The next step is to bulk CC all 3,521 of them and ask very politely to delete the offending email.

Not to excuse the error, but one can argue that at least it was just names and emails and not something more sensitive. For the best part unscrupulous firms you've signed up to at one point or another have already sold that email on to dozens of third party marketing firms. Or it's been leaked by others that haven't taken steps to protect their data. Or otherwise the company requesting your email has taken the liberty of spamming it with unrelated guff you're probably not interested in (music industry mailing lists are great for this).

The only real protection against it is to keep cycling your email address so the old ones become invalid (to you at least).

It's an odd mistake to have been made though, but without the details of that it's pointless to make assumptions about their system.

ICO = Information Commissioner's Office, apparently.

http://www.ico.gov.uk/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Commissioner%27s_Of...

That was a surprisingly honest & straightforward article for The Register. Hopefully they'll embrace this style in the future once in a while instead of leaping head-first into click bait rag territory as usual.