Business 2.0 has collected quite an assortment of blunders from the world of business in 2001 (though in truth they cast the net rather wider, encompassing all sorts of Internet-related blunders).
Numbers 29 and 30 – Great Moments in Privacy – were stunning:
“Eli Lilly sends a mass e-mail in July to users of its antidepressant Prozac but neglects to use the “bcc” header, further depressing its customers by disclosing their online identities to one another.
“Trumping Eli Lilly, in October a graduate student at the University of Montana accidentally posts to the school’s website more than 400 documents relating to the psychiatric treatment of 62 children, including names, addresses, descriptions of sessions, and diagnoses.”
Number 38 also caught my eye:“38. Excite@Home, iWon.com, and others line up to sponsor “Back the Net” day on April 3, 2001; participants are encouraged to purchase either a product or a share of stock online. The idea is “to dispel the negative stereotypes … that have sent our technological marketplace into a recession.” (Because nothing dispels negative stereotypes quite like an abject plea for charity.)”
Oh, and they were honest enough to mention their own at #11 – putting the CEO of Enron on their cover in August/September – a week before his resignation.
If you have your own tales of e-catastrophe you can add them to their site here (and read other reader-generated ones).
