Main News Desk

Poll reveals UK’s top five online blunders

humyo.com gets consumers voting for their all time internet slip-ups

UK - May 21, 2009

The UK’s biggest online boob was the saucy email Claire Swire sent to her then boyfriend, which spread around the world within hours even getting as far as New Zealand.

Despite happening back in 2000, UK consumers picked this incident as their number one online blunder when asked by online storage provider humyo.com. [1]

Second in the poll was Somerfield’s claim that Easter eggs symbolised the birth of Christ. The news was widely circulated via email and appeared extensively online leaving the supermarket chain with egg on its face.

Also in the top three was Jo Moore’s infamous email suggesting it was a good day to bury bad news, sent within hours of the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.

The Pentagon’s top-secret emails to a Devon school girl came fourth in the poll whilst Leslie Grantham’s webcam antics came fifth.

Details of the top five incidences are outlined below.

1 - Boys will be boys - In 2000 Claire Swire sent a saucy email to her then boyfriend who worked at the London law firm Norton Rose. Her boyfriend decided to forward it to a few of his closest chums, who in turn sent it for all the wrong reasons to their pals, and before long Claire was a global talking point.

2 - Retailer left with egg on its face - Somerfield got the meaning of Easter slightly wrong after claiming it marked the birth of Christ to promote how well its Easter eggs were selling. When the error was finally picked up, a correction was swiftly issued, claiming that Easter marks the rebirth of Christ.

3 - No day is a good day to bury bad news - Shortly after the World Trade Center was attacked on September 11, 2001, Transport Secretary Stephen Byers' special adviser Jo Moore emailed colleagues suggesting it was a good day to bury bad news. She had to apologise after the email became public and later lost her job over similar accusations around the day of Princess Margaret's funeral.

4 - Pentagon commits schoolboy error - Devon schoolgirl Claire McDonald found she was receiving emails containing top-secret information from the Pentagon after being accidentally added to a round robin list by a navy commander. Ironically one of those emails offered advice to the UK on how to prevent secrets from being leaked.

5 - Dirty Den caught on camera - Leslie Grantham, who played Dirty Den in EastEnders, sparked outrage in May 2004 after a newspaper printed photographs of him exposing himself and masturbating via a webcam to an undercover reporter.

Executive quote

“Our poll might be a bit tongue in cheek but it does show that people have a long memory as far as online blunders are concerned,” said Dan Conlon, founder of humyo.com.

About the company

About humyo.com. (www.humyo.com)

humyo.com was founded in January 2007 as a means to provide a safe and secure storage space for personal files, accessible through a computer or a mobile phone. humyo.com offers users 10GB of space for free to store and share anything from documents to music and video files, no matter where you are. It negates the inflexibility of leaving your data at home or at the office, and the risk of loss, theft or damage that comes from taking your files around with you in your pocket or on your laptop.

humyo.com takes all possible measures to ensure the security of user data including 256-bit encryption, firewalling, and a partitioned network. In addition, humyo.com's servers are stored in a former Bank of England gold bullion vault with bomb-blast corridors and blast-proof steel gates.

humyo.com was founded by Dan Conlon, a dotcom entrepreneur who sold his first business to Pipex, where he became MD of Hosting. The business is privately funded.

Contact details

For further press information and photography please contact:

Angela Workman / Patrick Hussey at LEWIS, the PR agency

Tel: +44 (0) 161 601 457 2056

Email: humyo@lewispr.com

Website: www.lewispr.com

For enquiries about humyo.com, please contact:

Paul Westwood

Tel: +44 (0) 7590 694 170

Email: pwestwood@humyo.com

Website: www.humyo.com

Bookmarklets:

Recent Press Releases

2010 Archive

2009 Archive

2008 Archive

2007 Archive

Jump to: