The 11th e-mail gaffe

Following on from Sathnam's post on the top 10 e-mail gaffes here is another. This will make anyone who works in law or any other sensitive role cringe and journalists the world over smirk.

Network World reports: "A simple e-mail slip-up, the kind any one of us could make at any time: A Philadelphia lawyer addresses his electronic missive to an Alex Berenson instead of Bradford Berenson.

But what happens next is anything but routine; it's front-page news in the New York Times. That's because Alex Berenson happens to be a reporter for the New York Times, as opposed to Bradford being another lawyer, and the e-mail happens to concern settlement talks between the U.S. government and pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly that include the proposed sum of $1 billion. Oopsie."

Oopsie indeed.

Comments

[mike Ashworth]

Is it possible that although an email was sent to the incorrect person they may not use any of it for any purpose?

Isn't that what those long disclaimers at the foot of Company emails are about? Or are they complete nonsense and not worth the bits and bytes they use?

Mike Ashworth
Business and Marketing Coach
Brighton, UK

[Dan Lewis]

To Mike Ashworth

I've been told, but I can't recall by whom, that those disclaimers are a waste of electrons. My recollection was the comment was that there was legal basis for it. This memory is a few years old, and I'd be interested in other people's input on that very topic.