Play.com has said that personal information of some users has been compromised because of an e-mail security breach. It has warned customers to "be vigilant."
The online retailer of music, videos and games has blamed its marketing partner Silverpop for the disclosure of customer names and e-mail addresses.
The company had hired US-based Silverpop in 2008 to manage its e-marketing.
In a statement, Play.com’s chief executive John Perkins said: "On Sunday 20 March some customers reported receiving a spam e-mail to e-mail addresses they only use for Play.com."
"We believe this issue may be related to some irregular activity that was identified in December 2010 at our e-mail service provider, Silverpop.
While the company has assured that no payment details were stolen, it has said that spam e-mails containing harmful links could reach users.
Perkins said, "Investigations at the time showed no evidence that any of our customer e-mail addresses had been downloaded.
"We reacted immediately by informing all our customers of this potential security breach in order for them to take the necessary precautionary steps."
Play.com has also apologised for the incident. It said that the company had "taken every step to make sure this doesn’t happen again."
It has also requested users to forward suspicious messages to privacy@play.com.
Perkins said, "On behalf of Play.com, I would like to once again apologise to our customers for any inconvenience due to a potential increase in spam that may be caused by this issue."
"We are confident that the breach last year remains an isolated incident."
