Sex lube manufacturer accidentally releases customer list

[Samurai Drifter]

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/04/s...ube_makers.html

Sex Lube Maker's 250K Customer List Slides Onto Net -- Updated With Astroglide Comment

They Just Slipped Those Names Right in The Index More than 250,000 people's names and addresses are now naked on the web after the maker of a popular sexual lubricant called Astroglide accidentally exposed lists of people who bought or requested free samples of its products, proving that there's no such thing as a free lubricant. BioFilm, a privately-held California company specializing in sexual lubricants, exposed customer data files dating from 2003 to 2007 to Google's search engine in early April. Google then indexed the pages and made local cache copies. A search on an individual's name now reveals that person's home address and the product they requested or ordered.

AstroGlide, a once niche product that is now stocked by major drugstore chains and Walmart, took down its free sample page

on Monday in the last few days (cached copy). The page promised users that "All information will be used for mailing purposes only and will not be distributed to any outside organizations. Except maybe the paramedics if your free trial gets out of hand."

The company's privacy policy also promises that:

"We take reasonable steps to protect your personally identifiable information as you transmit your information from your computer to our site and to protect such information from loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. [...]

Other than as disclosed in this Privacy Policy, we will not contact you with marketing material or share your PII [personally identifiable information] with outside parties unless such use or disclosure is clearly identified at the time you provide your PII or we provide you the opportunity to consent or prohibit such use or disclosure."

The files indexed by Google contain a total of 263,822 listings, each of which included a name and mailing addresses. No financial information was exposed. A random sampling included privacy conscious entries such as Current Resident and clearly fake entries for President George W. Bush and former Republican Senator Rick Santorum. Possibly less humorous are the tens of thousands of entries from people who used their real names. These included included doctors, programmers, students and a vice chancellor for a prestigious American university.

The vice-chancellor reached by phone said he wasn't particularly disturbed by the disclosure. "Obviously I would be disappointed [by the company breaking its privacy policy], but I'm not worried about that information getting out. I think I just gave them my name, address and phone number. I can see how other people would be concerned about it, though."

BioFilm is closed on Mondays and multiple attempts to reach the company were unsuccessful.

Anyone searching Google on the affected names would be able to find links to Astroglide customer files that Google indexed on April 3. The links no longer work, but Google cached copies of more than 500 files, which are still available for any internet user to view. Michael Hampton, a blogger who runs Homeland Stupidity, reported on Saturday that the company learned of the security lapse last week and took technical measures to prevent the files from being indexed or read directly.

The company's website makes no mention of the data security lapse, and it's unclear if the company has asked Google to remove the files. THREAT LEVEL reported the cached files to Google before publication.

Google doesn't treat the files as highly important, so the results are not extremely visible for those who have more than a handful of internet citations or have a common name. But for those with only one or two search results for their names and an unusual name, any searcher can easily see that person once requested or bought lubricant online.

:laugh:

[HappyLittleBoozer]

I don't use Astroglide, so my name wouldn't be on there. Now if it were KY warming liquid...

[Tanni Foemangler]

being on a list of people who enjoy using their penises and vaginas isn't so bad. hell, i wish i was on that list so when you googled my name i'd be on one of the first eleven pages

[darkon]

This really isn't a bad list to be on lol.

But I could still see some people being very embarassed.

[No Sad Endings]

Bwahah XDD

Is astroglide really good or something? Why don't you just use hand lotion =\

Water based lubricant is healthier for sex organs (especially the vagina), and you don't want to use lotion with condoms because the lotion can potentially contain petroleum derived products which break down latex.

[Pamuya]

being on a list of people who enjoy using their penises and vaginas isn't so bad. hell, i wish i was on that list so when you googled my name i'd be on one of the first eleven pages

yeah i would too except i wouldnt want my address on there.

XDDD

i was kinda hoping this would be something like, a sex accident or recall, cuz i didnt see the whole title on the main page.

[The Lone Magician]

looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

oooool

[Ceraziefish]

One time my friend was at a party. There was a man named Jaia at this party. Everyone at the party decided to have a good time making fun of Jaia, so they decided to order as much free lube as they could and send it to Jaia's house -- with, of course, the name "Jaia's Mom."