A Gmail outage and Google glitch reportedly caused thousands of blank emails to be sent to one man's Hotmail account. (File/UPI/Robert Galbraith/Pool) | License Photo

During Friday’s Google outage, a glitch apparently caused one man’s Hotmail address to be bombarded with thousands of emails.

TechCrunch reported on the bug, saying users who turned to Google Search with the keyword "Gmail" may have sent an email to one David S. Peck -- at Hotmail.com


After clicking the “Gmail – Google” link following, some users were brought to a Gmail compose window displaying the email address dsp559 at Hotmail automatically filled in.

As a near-death experience makes a man hold his children closer, the Gmail outage inspired me to answer some emails. #blessed — Teju Cole (@tejucole) January 24, 2014

“I’ve been getting thousands of no-subject, blank emails,” Peck told TechCrunch on Friday. “500 of them come every hour, I can’t stop them.”

Peck said the issue started yesterday and that he contacted Hotmail customer support for help. The alternate email address he gave them, however, was Gmail.

“They’re coming so fast, I want to stop them. I deleted everything last night and woke up this morning and had 1,900 new emails” Peck said. “Only two of them were emails I cared about.”

David S. Peck…..DSP……Department of (Homeland) Security PRISM — Brian Feldman (@BAFeldman) January 24, 2014

The Google outage affected users for a little more than an hour on Friday afternoon.

“We're investigating reports of an issue with Gmail. We will provide more information shortly,” Google wrote at 2:12 p.m.

At 3:23, things were supposedly fixed: “The problem with Gmail should be resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support. Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better.”

"Daddy, what did you do during the Gmail riots of '14?" — Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) January 24, 2014

[Tech Crunch] [Google]