Media Decoder Blog: The Times E-Mails Millions by Mistake to Say Subscriptions Were Canceled

4:28 p.m. | Updated The New York Times said it accidentally sent e-mails on Wednesday to more than eight million people who had shared their information with the company, erroneously informing them they had canceled home delivery of the newspaper.

The Times Company, which initially mischaracterized the mishap as spam, apologized for sending the e-mails. The 8.6 million readers who received the e-mails represent a wide cross-section of readers who had given their e-mails to the newspaper in the past, said a Times Company spokeswoman, Eileen Murphy.

“We regret that the error was made, but no one’s security has been compromised,” she said.

The e-mail urged recipients to reconsider subscribing to the Times at “50% off for 16 weeks.” The false message sent off a flood of Twitter reactions and lit up the Times switchboard.

The Times official Twitter feed sent this message: “If you received an email today about canceling your NYT subscription, ignore it. It’s not from us.”

Those initial comments raised questions in some readers’ minds about whether hackers might have had access to their credit card and personal information, a misimpression that Ms. Murphy said the company was now working to correct.

She said the e-mail was sent by a Times employee, and not the third-party Epsilon Interactive, the service The Times uses to communicate with subscribers.

The Times is the nation’s third-largest newspaper in Monday to Friday print subscriptions, after The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, and No. 1 in Sunday subscriptions, with 1.65 million customers receiving the Sunday print edition, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The NYTimes.com Web site had 32.3 million unique viewers in November.

Late Wednesday afternoon, the company sent an e-mail to recipients of the erroneous note to explain the error. Around that time, a short notice to readers appeared on the NYTimes.com home page.

“It’s in our interest now to make sure people understand the correct situation,” Ms. Murphy said.

In comments posted on The Times Web site, as well as on Twitter, readers wrote that they wanted in on the deal being offered in the mass e-mail. “Still wanna give me 50% off?” one reader asked via Twitter.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=91b772f6bd7fdf708947888570451119