In 3MR:

San Francisco Bay Guardian Uncovers Dirt at HotWired

"The controversy surrounds the first-ever commercial spam issued by Wired to HotWired members. The spam offered HotWired members an exclusive opportunity to open an account with the on-line investment firm Wit Capital. The letter mentioned that Wit Capital was one of Wired's business partners and that Wired had recently purchased a minority stake in the privately funded company. The e-mail was still apparently in violation of a 3-year-old HotWired policy in which the company promised to protect the privacy of its members and never to sell its list of e-mail addresses, nor to use it for advertising purposes.

"Further complicating matters, was a February 1998 issue of Wired magazine featuring a story in the form of an excerpt from a book about Wit Capital written by Wit's owner Andrew Klein. The article did not mention until the ninth of its ten pages that Wired had an interest of any kind in the success or failure of the company for which it was providing such great publicity."

The Bay Guardian article, written by former HotWired staffer Brooke Shelby Biggs, contained leaked information from a certain copyeditor. Wired searched through email logs and found the leak, promptly firing the copyeditor. Tensions are mounting...