The N.C. Utilities Commission is eating crow after inadvertently posting a Greensboro moving company's confidential information online, a violation of the commission's own privacy policy.

The commission's gaffe happens at a time that the commission has issued fines up to $1,000 against more than 50 moving companies -- and is threatening to yank their operating licenses -- for failing to follow commission rules.

Commission Chairman Edward Finley Jr. this week apologized to Ray Moving and Storage for posting company owners' social security numbers, birth dates and fingerprints from an FBI criminal background check. The moving company filed a complaint with the state Attorney General, demanding that the commission reprimand or fire the staffer responsible for the breach.

"It was an inadvertent failure to comply with our policies and rules," Finley acknowledged by phone this afternoon. "We handle all sorts of volumes of paper up here and mistakes happen."