HootSuite CEO offers ‘product credit’ after botched Seesmic integration exposes names and email addresses

Ryan Holmes, CEO of social media management startup HootSuite, has offered customers a “product credit” after an error in integrating new accounts exposed users’ names and email addresses. Some users reported receiving hundreds of emails reminding them that a 60-day HootSuite Pro trial period was about to end, despite having never signed up for such a trial — in many cases, the emails contained others users’ addresses in the ‘To:’ field.

According to a statement given to The Next Web, also posted on HootSuite’s website, the mass mailouts were caused by “a technical issue related to our integration of Seesmic accounts with our existing HootSuite user accounts.” HootSuite acquired competitor Seesmic in September in an effort to boost its enterprise user base, part of the rush for the corporate market precipitated by Twitter’s controversial API changes, first proposed back in June. Holmes states that the credit will be offered as a “sign of our upmost [sic] respect” in order to “make things right,” though does not offer any details of its range or value.