“We recently sent you a version of your monthly Local Business Center newsletter that may have contained some incorrect business listing statistics — our apologies. Shortly after sending out the email, we realized that there was a human error when putting together the content. We’re sorry about this mistake. Here you’ll find the updated, accurate statistics for your business.”

This was from a 12:40 p.m. email today.

Disturbing, still, is how you can ever promise to protect private data when “human error” is involved.

The apology may be done, but Google’s team still some explaining to do.

Assurance comes from the details.

How long is “shortly after,” when it took more than 14 hours to get out an email apologizing?

What kind of human error?

Just how widespread was this?

Where did my information end up?

Without this type of detail, it’s still a confidence-shaking issue.

You’ve taken the first step of crisis management, Google, now your public relations team should proceed to stay in front of this story.