The 15 Biggest Screw-ups in Internet History

Whoops! The 15 Biggest Screw-ups in Internet History

By Jessica Hupp

Everybody makes mistakes sometimes, but when those mistakes are made online by high-profile figures, it’s hard not to stare at the train wreck. Whether you’ve accidentally launched a virus, or given control of your company blog to a stranger, it’s obvious you’ve screwed up big time. Check out these 15 Internet screw-ups that will live in infamy.

1. Dreamhosts’ $7.5 Million Billing Mistake: Due to a “fat-fingered” error, Dreamhost accidentally overbilled almost all of their customers, charging them for nearly a year in hosting fees. Large charges appeared on customers’ credit and debit cards, but Dreamhost promised to make good on refunds, and even said they’d pay for any overdraft fees they caused.
2. iTunes Leaks Stargate Atlantis: On iTunes, Apple offered what it thought was the season premiere of the sci-fi TV show Stargate Atlantis, but actually sold the fourth episode instead. It didn’t take long for the episode to be uploaded onto BitTorrent and other P2P networks, so there was no way out of this screw up. To make up for it, Apple offered the actual season premiere and an iTunes credit for $2. The mistake was caused by a production number mixup.
3. Viacom Issues a Takedown For its Own Pirated Video: In the midst of a copyright battle with YouTube, Viacom revealed themselves as video pirates themselves. They tried to get a clip removed from YouTube, but they hadn’t yet received permission to use the source video in the clip. Viacom even sent a DCMA takedown notice to the owner of the original content, asking him to take down the clip.
4. AOL Releases Search Data for 650,000 Users: In an effort to provide research tools to the academic community, AOL accidentally released search data on more than 650,000 users. Although it was anonymized, it showed searches for murder, incest, and other unpleasantries. You could also find names, Social Security numbers, addresses, and more.
5. Google Deletes Their Official Blog: Google accidentally deleted their official blog, which was picked up by a well-intentioned college student. It could have been used to send out misinformation or even malware.
6. Google Mistakes Own Blog for Spam, Deletes It: Google didn’t learn from past mistakes. Blogger’s spam classifier accidentally marked the Custom Search Blog as spam, the bloggers overlooked the notification they received, and the blog was disabled as a result. This made the URL available to the general public, and was squatted by a person named Srikanth.
7. Nevada Governor Accidentally Posts Outlook Password: On the Governor of Nevada’s website, an instruction guide was posted that told aides how to send out an email on behalf of the governor. This of course included his email, which was a not-very-secure combination of his first and last names. The files were quickly taken down, but still available for some time through Google’s cache.
8. Google’s Spider Deletes a Website: One of the website’s users accidentally left an “edit” hyperlink open-and somehow copied this on to every page-which allowed deletion, and the Google spider found these pages, which consequently deleted them. They were able to restore the site with backups, and resolved to never copy and paste content again.
9. Capcom Links to Hardcore Porn: On the game box for Capcom’s Killer 7, the official URL is listed as www.killer7.com, which is a hardcore porn site. The site should have been listed as www.killer-7.com. Apparently, the porn site was originally registered to Capcom and was the official site when the game was released, but they lost the URL.
10. The Morris Worm: Although the Mooris Worm gave Robert Tappan Morris fame as a hacker, it was actually one big mistake. His intention was to use the worm to see how large the Internet was, but things went bad when the work replicated itself excessively and slowed down computers.
11. Blogger Can’t Quit AOL: This blogger taped his conversation with AOL in which they did just about everything possible to keep him from canceling his account.
12. The Department of Homeland Security Fails its Own Cyber Attack: Homeland Security simulated a cyber attack, called Operation Cyber Storm, and revealed that we’d fare pretty poorly.
13. Best Buy’s Secret Website: A few customers have found that Best Buy’s in-store website reflects higher prices than the one widely available on the Internet. This is apparently an attempt to convince customers that their in-store price reflects any web specials they may be offering. They are identical, except for the prices.
14. Symantec Kills the CyberSitter: In a Symantec Security Response update, a program called CyberSitter was tagged as a virus. This led to a number of customers losing both their operating systems and Internet access, including schools and libraries.
15. BBC Mistakes Cabbie for Internet Download Expert: A BBC reporter thought she was interviewing Guy Kewney, editor of Newswireless.net, but she was actually interviewing a local cabbie. In this case of mistaken identity, the men looked nothing alike, and Mr. Kewney actually saw the taxi driver being introduced under his name. Although the driver knew nothing about the main topics of Apple, online music, or the Beatles, he said he felt the interview went