Bloops. After following up on a false lead — essentially a faked internal Apple email — Engadget’s Ryan Block drove Apple stock down 2.2 percent. Let that be a lesson to all of us: just because it says @apple.com at the end of the email doesn’t mean it’s from Steve.
Engadget sends Apple stock plunging on iPhone rumor [CNET]
False alarm: iPhone NOT delayed until October, Leopard NOT delayed again until January [Engadget]
Wow! I am sure someone is going to need a good lawyer after this. I’d be willing to bet someone lost millions because of this. If that were me, I would be PISSED!
Yikes. I see a case study in the effects of social media right around the corner. And I hope someone wants to present it at http://www.blogphiladelphia.net/!
Nice plug, annie!
You’re oversimplifying a bit when you write, “just because it says @apple.com at the end of the email doesn’t mean…” They had other evidence beyond that. My understanding from the other news stories is that the email actually did originate from within the Apple network. This is technically a lot harder to do than just forging a header, and surely made the Apple employees more likely to fall for the hoax. (Engadget got its information from an Apple employee passing on what he thought was internal Apple email.)
Bottom line: Your advice about not trusting the claimed email address is excellent advice, of course. But in this case, there was more falsified evidence beyond just that.
We all have to watch out for this sort of thing, from the gizmo gorillas to us little folks. I think the real story is the market moving nature of the post, something that only Bloomberg and Reuters could do, historically.
4 bilion more exactly