The New York Times sent an email out to 8.6 million people today erroneously informing them they had canceled home delivery of the newspaper.

Some who received the email had registed on NYTimes.com in the past, but had never subscribed to the at-home newspaper delivery.

The email, titled "Important informatio n regarding your subscripti on," read: "Our records indicate that you recently requested to cancel your home delivery subscription…. We do hope you'll reconsider. As a valued Times reader we invite you to continue your current subscription at an exclusive rate of 50% off for 16 weeks."

The Times apologized for the mistake, and tweeted: "If you received an email today about canceling your NYT subscription, ignore it. It's not from us."

The Times sent out a second email three hours after the first that read:  "This e-mail was sent by us in error. Please disregard the message. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused."

Originally, Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha said the email was spam. But spokeswoman Eileen Murphy clarified later that the email was sent not by the third party Epsilon Interactive, the service the Times uses to communicate with subscribers, but accidentally by a Times employee, according to the paper.

"We regret that the error was made, but no one's security has been compromised," Murphy said, according to the Times.