Anti-filesharing lawyers emails "published to the web"

Whoopsie-daisy. ACS:Law, one of the legal firms that has done very nicely, thank you, out of pursuing unlicensed music files appears to have published thousands of pieces of personal data on the internet. Technology Guardian reports:

The website went offline after users of the online messageboard 4Chan orchestrated a sustained attack on it, putting the site offline for much of the week. A file containing the confidential information – which includes thousands of emails to and from the company – appears to have been inadvertently published on the front page of ACS:Law's website as it recovered from an attack, security experts Symantec told the Guardian. The file has since been distributed widely across the internet.

What do ACS say?

Andrew Crossley, the lead solicitor at ACS:Law who has shouldered much of the ire from compainants, this morning told the Guardian that he had contacted the information commissioner about the distribution of this confidential information, adding: "We're aware of it and unable to comment about it for legal reasons."

What those legal reasons are aren't clear - perhaps ACS:Law have taken an injunction out on themselves to prevent them suggesting that email communications with them might end up on the internet. Although they'd be aware of it happening.

You might think that they'd pop along to have a chat with a similarly stupidly punctuated PR firm for advice on whether not saying anything at all is the best approach when many of your secrets have apparently been strewn across the internet.