I find it as a marketing strategy to use these emails they gather through the said process and so I'm not blaming them for doing that. But the issue happens on how they actually distributed the said advertisement to their customers. The email was sent in bulk and all email are sent using CC (Carbon Copy) instead of BCC (Blind Carbon Copy). Both of these system sends copy of emails to each address on the list but the difference is CC's emails are visible to everyone on the list whereas BCC hides this information.
With this error on LG's marketing, a hundred (or probably a thousand) emails were exposed yesterday (including my own personal email) to all the person who received the said ad. I'm not exactly sure on how the law works on here but being in the industry, I'm pretty sure that these information should be kept in private and their actions are clearly a violation on the basic privacy policy.
After the bulk email sent by LG, I receive more emails coming from some of the person on the list, showing dismay on what LG does on their information. Few were even send their queries to LG about this issue.
A day after the email blast, I received another email from LG entitled "Apology:Email Blast". They are sending their sincerest apology becuase of what happen and blaming their system upgrade for the cause of this. The exact excerpt of their apology was posted below:
To our Valid LG Customers
We would like to send our sincerest apology about the recent email blast that we sent about our current promotion, and for any inconvenience this might have caused.
We at LG, value our customers and we take pride in being customer centric in our business. Unfortunately, we did not meet your expectations and as well as ours. After a careful analysis we isolated the cause of this incident to an internal system upgrade that was aimed to improve our services, we are currently taking the necessary precautions to ensure that we will meet and exceed your expectations and avoid this incident to recur in the future.
Please feel free to reach us through our help-lines:
Phone: (02) 902-5544
Globe: 0917-8242525
Smart: 0920-9002525
Sun: 0922-8022525
Globe toll Free: 1-800-8-902-5544
PLDT toll Free: 1-800-10-640-2525
Digitel toll Free: 1-800-3-902-5454
Again, we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you.
Admin
LG with U
The issue, though LG has already sent an apology, still isn't fixed in my own opinion. We cannot assure that all the emails sent yesterday are now gone. The fault has been done and I hope LG has learned something from this. As for us, we should make sure that whenever we fill up online forms, always make sure that you can trust the sites. As you can see, even big companies make mistakes that can easily violate the confidentiality of your data.
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Hi there ajibanda, just visiting your blog, saw your blog on the facebook group, by the way I really like your blog and I already added you in my blog links so that i could visit your blog regularly, hope that you could add my blog also in your links thanks
ReplyDeletehttp://blobberboy.blogspot.com/
Thanks for dropping B-Boy :)
ReplyDeleteYeah sure, I've already added you.
tama nakakatakot nga ang mga ganyan.. which could also be used as spams or something...
ReplyDeletehi Kiko!, sinabi mo pa.. kaya nga after nila mag-email blast andami kaagad nagreact, mali nga naman kasi ginawa nila eh.
ReplyDeletewow... Bro that's a mess. Hope you'll have a new plan regarding this mess. Have you take any consideration on changing to new e-mail? This must be a lesson not only to LG but also to damn big companies who are abusive in their clients trust.
ReplyDeleteI think you should read International Laws about this complaints. This is really an important issue....
Good Luck, Bro. We are here to support you if you have any suggestions regarding this and when you need help.
Hi Jr! regarding the change in email, I actually have no plan about it, I've been using that email ever since I started using email.. so yeah, that's older than this blog and I think it was already decade. All my other emails are redirected to that (even my company and Google emails) so I don't think I would want to change it since it would really mess up most of my online accounts.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I know, only the local LG made this error, and as of now, I haven't send any complaints to them yet regarding this (as compare to others on the list who already reacted). Yes, I know it's a little serious but there's not much that I can do about it since it has been done and sent already.
Well if they start spamming me again then maybe I'll move then and take some action but for now, I'll just take it as a lesson for their developers. "Charge to experience" as they say.
For me, well, I'm a software developer too, so I think I can handle this in case they try to do something bad on my accounts.. :p
Thanks for the concern, I appreciate it. :)
Even known company can't avoid these kind of cyber crime. I think Philippine government doesn't take this issue seriously.
ReplyDeleteWith their statement that, hopefully the LG will further enhance the level profesinalisme again to be able to satisfy their correspondents or their customers in the future.
ReplyDeleteHi Christian! As far as I know, there is no concrete law yet that solves cyber crime, especially here in the Philippines. And yeah, everyone, big or small cannot avoid this kind of fault.
ReplyDeletehi erik! welcome back..
ReplyDeleteYeah, with this, I think they'd be more cautious with how they handle their works. Hopefully, they won't use this customers' details again for marketing purpose. Shame on them.
Hi, AJ! This is the reason why I have two separate emails, one that I use to send PERSONAL emails, and the other one, that I use to sign up for newsletters or promos. Too late for their apologies. Once, the email is out, then, it's out, it could be used by stupid spammers. This should be a big lesson for them, they should protect their subscribers; if they don't want to be pulled down by their mistakes. Tnx for sharing! =)
ReplyDeleteTrue! We must accept that Philippines is not ready to face big problem about Cyber Crime. BTW, we will not avoid the fact that we also do this kind of stuff in order to give our site a visitor (Social Marketing).
ReplyDeleteActually pwede mo sila kasuhan. Nakakainis naman yan.
ReplyDeleteFickle Cattleficklecattle.blogspot.com
Wow, this is horrible AJ, imagine one of the people from the list was an online business marketer, then he would steal this list or even sell it to other people, and then you would get random spam promotion messages over and over again. Bad mistake.
ReplyDeleteHi Harrison, with the comments I'm receiving on this post, I already tried to contact their support this morning to request them to remove all my account and information to their data. I'm still waiting for their response though.
ReplyDeleteEven though, we cannot erase the fact that it has already happen. I just wish that everyone on the list thinks the same way I think right now and won't take advantage of this.
Exactly, wala na rin naman po akong magagawa kahit magalit pa ko sa kanila, and even though that they got my personal email (which I did years ago), hopefully they'll just use it for marketing. Mas ok na po yun kesa ihack nila yung email ko or use it for other purpose.
ReplyDeleteLesson learned: create different emails for different purpose. :)
I loved LG and I used LG products.
ReplyDeleteAny way around, it was a an act of aggressive marketing and to think, the apology letter could be a follow up marketing strategy. But yeah it's good to know that they valued their customers and maybe next time they should sent a bulk of cellphones. That's really acceptable!
Thanks for bringing this up Aj.
Their apology worth,a part of marketing strategy but a lessoned learn .Same with Kira, I am an LG lover AJ...
ReplyDeleteActually their apology was more like an after-effect of their marketing strategy that gone wrong (on which they are blaming their server for the leak of their customer's data). Anyway, I too love LG, specially their phones. :)
ReplyDeleteIt looks like a desperate move from LG kung totoo nga na intentional ung ginawa nila.
ReplyDelete