The good news is, an Internet coupon offering went viral for Kmart. The bad news is that it wasn't supposed to.

Cue the face-palms as executives for Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD), parent of Kmart, decide the best method for damage control after at least one Kmart store manager allegedly accused a customer of fraud when attempting to use what appeared to be, or should have been, a legitimate store coupon.

Two events this summer embarrassed a pair of BloggingStocks readers' favorite subjects. AOL (TWX) released anonymous search data for academic study which then found its way to the blogosphere, and Starbucks (SBUX) created a virtual coupon for free drinks that the company then had to renege on.

The Starbucks thing makes that company look foolish, unhip, and naive. Not great when one's image depends on providing a high quality, cosmopolitan product. True, Starbucks in not an internet company. Or is it? Is there anything such as a non-internet international company? Certainly Starbucks has had an online presence since, well, the beginning of internet commercialization, but this episode makes them look like your Grandmother whom you have to tell to ignore emails from that nice deposed prince overseas needing help with his frozen billion in assets.

Remember those emails sent around 1999? "Please forward this email and Bill Gates will give you $1,000," it said. Something about an experiment Microsoft was conducting.

Starbucks unwittingly conducted an experiment in the forwarding behavior of its employees in the Southeast U.S., offering a coupon for one free iced coffee (between noon and 9 p.m.) via email. The email said to "try your coffee iced" and encouraged employees to forward the printable coupon to families and friends.

Some of the family and friends, evidently, have eBay seller accounts and printed out multiple coupons to sell. As the Oregonian noted, you could buy a pack of nine Starbucks free iced beverage coupons -- redeemable for anything from a regular iced coffee to a Frappuccino. While the AP is saying that Starbucks has rescinded the offer, according to the Oregonian, many stores were still honoring the coupons -- good through September 30, according to the fine print.

Starbucks can hardly afford to lose sales this month given its poor results last month, but what's worse: the small impact of those still forwarding the emails (and the few dozen being sold on eBay), or the negative PR of pulling a freely-given coupon?