Images: Top Web news gaffes

Bloggers, editors, publicists--anyone really with access to a Web publishing tool--knows that sinking feeling you get when realizing you've hit the publish button accidentally or in haste. You can't take it back--it's already out there in cyberspace--and there are often major consequences, as was the case in the instances we highlight for you here.

The most recent example of an online publishing flub occurred earlier this month when an investor news service, the South Florida-based Income Securities Advisors, found a news article from 2002 about United Airlines' bankruptcy via Google News and consequently included it in that day's news digest--which wound up on Bloomberg's news wire.

By the time United put out a release denying the news, its stock had plummeted 75 percent from $12.30 on Friday to less than $3. It eventually climbed back up to $10.49, but Nasdaq, which lists United Airline's stock, decided against rescinding trades that had happened as a result of the mishap.

The SEC has opened a "preliminary inquiry" into the matter, people familiar with the matter said.