The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), for all its good intentions, isn’t impervious to gaffes.
In 2010, when StarCraft II and World of Warcraft mastermind Blizzard made an announcement that its customers would have to start using their real names online, the ESRB intervened on behalf of gamers, eventually convincing Blizzard to reverse its decision.
But in an email announcing the triumphant reversal to about 1,000 gamers, the ESRB fired before ever aiming — rather than pasting all those emails into the “BCC” field, they put them directly in the “To” box, instantly exposing the private addresses of all those they’d been trying to help.