Amazon says some customer email addresses exposed

Amazon on Wednesday said that a website glitch accidentally exposed names and email addresses of some of the e-commerce giant’s customers. Amazon declined to disclose the extent of the software slip-up. “We have fixed the issue and informed customers who may have been impacted,” an Amazon spokesman said in response to an AFP inquiry.

There was no breach of Amazon systems or its website, and passwords were kept safe, according to the company. As a precaution, messages were sent to customers affected by the website mishap letting them know their names and email addresses may have been disclosed by the Amazon website. Amazon customers in the US and Europe have reported receiving messages from the company, according to tech news website TechCrunch.

The disclosure came on the cusp of the year-end holiday shopping season, with retailers online and in real-world shops offering “Black Friday” bargains pegged to the day after the Thanksgiving holiday in the US. Amazon is the “undisputed e-commerce leader” in the US, with a 48 percent share of online sales here this year expected to equate to some $252 billion, according to analysts at eMarketer. The market tracker forecast that total e-commerce sales in the US would jump 16.6 percent to $123.73 billion this holiday season as compared with the same period last year.