New York Times floods inboxes with subscription email

NEW YORK — The New York Times accidentally flooded email inboxes on Wednesday when a message destined for a few readers who had canceled their subscriptions ended up going out to millions.

The newspaper said the email inviting Times readers to renew their current subscription "at an exclusive rate of 50 percent off for 16 weeks" had ended up reaching 8.6 million readers by mistake.

Times Co. spokeswoman Eileen Murphy apologized for the mishap in a statement to the newspaper.

"We regret that the error was made, but no one's security has been compromised," Murphy said.

The Times had initially said the message appeared to be spam and was not sent by the newspaper.

Subscribers to the Times and non-subscribers alike took to Twitter in droves earlier Wednesday to report that they had received the email, which carried the subject line "Important information regarding your subscription."

Murphy told the Times an email would be sent to recipients of the previous message explaining the error.