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Story URL: http://software.silicon.com/security/0,39024655,10002589,00.htm

Domain name registrar in email blunder
Did someone say spam-fest?

By Tony Hallett

Published: Friday 24 January 2003

Network Solutions Inc has inadvertently sent some of its customers a list of about 86,000 other customers' email addresses.

silicon.com has been contacted by several of the companies affected. They have said the email takes a while to open but then, over hundreds of pages, shows the list in plain view, in the email body rather than in a cc field.

"It's an invitation to spammers," said one reader.

Others have pointed out that NSI is owned by security company VeriSign. Tim Moore, director at UK enterprise management company Parallel, wrote: "It is not the first time that the customer email addresses of a large company have been made public but this seems to have been sent by, or obtained from, one of the world's largest internet security companies."

While some people have received addresses for people connected to .org sites beginning in the R-Z name range, a Parallel spokeswoman said the list seemed to cover all sites.

NSI has sent an email apologising for the gaff and explaining changes in the way it is now handling domain names. The company has also pointed out the addresses are publicly available through its Whois search facility - though not as such a list.