Pro-RFID Group Sends Wrong Email To Anti-RFID Group
from the um.--we-didn't...-actually...-mean...-that dept
You've all heard stories (or been a part of) about email exchanges where the wrong thing was sent to the wrong person. One of the more common mistakes is someone hitting "reply" instead of "forward" and typing in a comment that the original sender as clearly not intended to see. That seems to be the case with an email exchange between a student intern at the Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA) and the founder and director of Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering (CASPIAN). The GMA supports using RFID tags, while CASPIAN has been outspoken against the tags. GMA had an intern contact the founder and director and ask for a bio. When she wrote back asking what it was to be used for, the intern accidentally hit reply instead of forward and wrote what they really wanted it for, which is probably not what they wanted to tell her: "I don't know what to tell this woman! 'Well, actually we're trying to see if you have a juicy past that we could use against you'." As you might imagine, the folks at the GMA have apologized for the misdirected email - and now both sides are saying that the mistake may actually have opened up some lines of communication between the two groups - though, I imagine the trust level won't be particularly high.
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Bummer...
Talk about losing your internship. I'm sure there will be no trust between these groups. Email gets more and more dangerous every day.
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No Subject Given
It just goes to show these groups (GMA) cannot be trusted. I don't think the intern was the one with the bright idea to ask for a bio to turn up something "juicy". However, he WILL be the sacrifical lamb.
This type of underhanded shenanigans by corporations (and yes, the GMA isn't a corp...but its likely sponsored by a few and under their control) is why I don't trust RFID tags at all. I do NOT for a second believe they will be disabled at the counter and I do NOT believe they will ONLY be used for inventory (as useful as that would be) and I do NOT believe they will reduce prices (only increase profits period) and last of all I don't believe the companies using them will respect our right to privacy.
Anyone who does believe those things, give me a call...I've got some swampland for sale.
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Typo
Uh, I think you mean the "intern" hit reply, not "the internet" (wow, that Internet sure is getting self-aware!!!)
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Re: Typo
Ha! You're absolutely right. Sorry about that. Fixed now.
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