HBO Max Blames Mistaken “Integration Test” Email on an Intern

Social media was abuzz tonight after thousands of HBO Max subscribers received strange emails titled “Integration Test Email #1,” which was ultimately blamed on a HBO Max intern.

The email was likely a mistake by an HBO Max developer or marketing person performing some tests on their platform and mistakenly sent out an email to all of the streaming network’s subscribers.

There is not much to the email, with it simply having a subject of  “Integration Test Email #1” and a message stating, “This template is used by integration tests only,” as shown below.

As a test email going out to all HBO Max subscribers wasn’t bad enough, HBO Max’s Twitter account blamed an intern for the mistakenly sent email blast.

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There seems to be a lot of passing the blame on interns lately, with the SolarWinds CEO recently blaming an intern for an insecure ‘solarwinds123’ password in a production environment.

As HBO Max sent the email via Sendgrid, a popular email marketing platform, it was likely a marketing test that was blasted out to all registered HBO Max accounts by mistake.

Even though the email was harmless, recipients on Twitter had a fun time making lighthearted jests about the HBO Max email.

As a recipient of the Hawaii missile alert, I felt well prepared to field HBO Max Integration Test Email #1.— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) June 18, 2021

The difference between HBO Go and HBO Max is that HBO Max includes every season Integration Test Email #1— Zack Bornstein (@ZackBornstein) June 18, 2021

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However, some took a more serious note by showing concern that HBO Max developers were conducting tests in a production environment rather than in a test environment.