AbeBooks Leak Customer Emails

AbeBooks.com is a marketplace for used books, whose web site promises that “your privacy is guaranteed”. Today, I’ve received an email from them informing me that they leaked my email address to someone else. Just as if it was something something ordinary, something that does not call for further action, explanation, or at least, an apology:

Epsilon Informs AbeBooks of E-mail Database Breach

We have been informed by Epsilon, a third-party vendor we use to send e-mails, that an unauthorized person outside their company accessed files that included e-mail addresses of some AbeBooks customers. Epsilon has advised us that the files that were accessed did not include any customer information other than email addresses.

As a reminder, AbeBooks will never ask customers for personal or account information in an e-mail. Please exercise caution if you get any emails that ask for personal information or direct you to a site where you are asked to provide personal information.

I guess this sort of things happens. But why should I care about a company called Epsilon? More importantly, why should I still trust AbeBooks? The email isn’t exactly reassuring.

I’ve actually never used my AbeBooks account, I don’t even remember why I’ve created it. But AbeBooks seemed trustworthy, a well-known site with many users, an Amazon subsidiary—everybody trusts Amazon, right?—, so didn’t cancel the account just in case it would turn out to be useful some time. A mistake. I shall be more careful next time.