Verizon breaks rule No. 2 about inviting IT pros to a security seminar

A couple of weeks ago I started a post with this nugget of, uh, wisdom: This should be a vendor’s first rule when inviting 1,200 IT pros to a seminar about securing data and protecting personal information: Make sure you protect the personal information of the 1,200 professionals you’re trying to impress.

I didn’t think the second rule required mentioning at the time, but I’ve been proven wrong, so here is rule No. 2: If you make the mistake of breaking rule No. 1, don’t be foolish enough to do it again.

Verizon has done it again … to the same people.

David Williams, technology coordinator for a Texas school district, was the fellow who told me about the original fumbling. He wrote then: “In a period of three hours I received 14 e-mails promoting Verizon’s ‘Secure the Information. Secure the Infrastructure’ webinar series … Considering their content (about data-breach seminars), I thought it very humorous that the TO: field of the e-mails contained over 1,200 e-mail addresses.”

Verizon apologized for the goof-up and blamed a problem with Microsoft Exchange.

However, Williams yesterday sent me this message:

“Update on Verizon. Just received the e-mail from Verizon promoting the Texas DIR seminar series 14 more times last night between 9:36 and 11:53 p.m. Same e-mail as before, same 1,200-plus e-mail addresses. … Looks like a relay server resent the e-mails from Oct 7th again?”

Can you believe it?

Williams sent the e-mail headers, so you can believe it.

Note to Verizon: If you’ve already broken rules No. 1 and No. 2 when inviting 1,200 IT pros to a seminar about protecting personal information, be aware that there is no rule No. 3. You’re in uncharted waters.

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