CNET Reporters Intend to Sue HP Over Surveillance

theodp writes "The NY Times reports that three CNET journalists whose records, as well as those of their relatives, were scrutinized by pretexting investigators working for HP intend to sue the company for invasion of privacy. HP, who paid $14.5M to settle a lawsuit filed by the CA attorney general in connection with the spying, reportedly offered each reporter $10,000, roughly enough to cover legal bills. The CNET reporters have been banned from covering HP or its see-no-evil CEO, who BTW was rewarded with $20.33M in 2006 despite skipping his reading assignments."

Comments

HP's Actions Where Shameful

[WrongSizeGlass]

I'm betting HP settles these suits before more of their shenanigans are exposed in open court ... and before Hurd's actions (or lack thereof) are dragged through the mud again and he's forced to resign as well.

Re:HP's Actions Where Shameful

[arun_s]

From TFA:

A California judge dismissed the charges against Ms. Dunn in March and reduced the charges against three other defendants to misdemeanors.
The company agreed in December to pay $14.5 million to settle a civil lawsuit filed by the California attorney general in connection with the spying. The company has also apologized to the journalists.

Yeah, they really got punished the last time round. They actually had to apologise to all those journalists!

DONT CALL IT PRETEXTING!

[Vegeta99]

Christ. Is it that hard to say "fraudulent, lying investigators" instead of buying into their bullshit and using that weasel word "pretexting"?

Re:DONT CALL IT PRETEXTING!

[Anonymous Coward]

They did say "fraudulent, lying investigators". "fraudulent, lying" was just pretexting as "pretexting".

Dear shareholders,

[Anonymous Coward]

I may be anonymous, but I can asure you that had I used my real name it would be of no significance to you. I am by most measures unaccomplished, and uninteresting. I would like to apply for a position as a CEO of your company. Why should you elect me, a man of such small virtue to represent your investments in these uncertain time? Simple, my promise to you is this: I will do nothing, and I will allow no one else to do anything. We will sit quitely while the company works out of sight and out of mind. There will be no travel, no extravagant expenses. I will provide my own computer, and internet service with which to read news, play fantasy football, and surf for japanese school girl porn. All of this I will do quietly. All this I plan to provide to you for the low low price of $500,000 dollars a year, $250,000 in salary, $250,000 in common stock. (Which I have no doubt will increase in value as competing companies will be saddled with boards that insist on doing things). As a final assurance, in the inescapable event that I must make some sort of descision, I will solicite the advice of the cog closest to the metal. And select the course of action, after all delay and procrastination has been exhausted, based on this person's recommendation.

Thank you for your careful consideration.

Cripes!

[rbochan]

I really wish people would stop with all this "pretexting" bullshit. Call it what it is:
Fraud.

Re:Cripes!

[Rob T Firefly]

I thought pretexting was a subcategory of fraud anyway. This old chestnut always sounds to me like "enough of this 'beef' bullshit, call it 'meat!'"

Re:Cripes!

[honkycat]

It is, but it sounds much more sanitary and pleasant, almost as though it's a legitimate business method. Fraud is plain, simple, and clear about the illegal nature of the activity it describes. Being specific with language is great, but in this case, I think it masks the meaning for people who are not familiar with the term.

$10,000?!?!?

[elrous0]

If they couldn't offer more than that, they shouldn't have offered anything at all. That's actually very insulting. If the reporters were THINKING about suing before, such a pathetic offer certainly sealed the deal.

Re:$10,000?!?!?

[Buran]

"I think the reporters are probably looking to cash in while they can."

I disagree. I think they're fairly expecting to be compensated for the embarrassment and offense and dirtiness they must feel for being treated like criminals for just doing their jobs. And I'd certainly expect to be handsomely compensated by a huge corporation that can certainly afford to pay the money when that corporation decided it could just ignore the law and violate my privacy.

Am I a greedy bitch? No, I don't think so. I think that doing something ethically, legally, and morally wrong is, well, wrong. If you do something wrong, you should put it right. HP pretended it had done nothing wrong, then it offered a pittance that told the reporters exactly how little HP thought of them and exactly how HP thought it had done nothing wrong. If you do something wrong and can't step up and say "We screwed up" and do it right (and apologies are worth nothing these days, just like "going into rehab" is a joke now) then you should be forced to make it right.

HP did this to itself and it failed to put it right on its own so now HP has to pay.

But HP have been spying for years

[therufus]

What about the "Backweb" software HP have been putting on their computers for the past decade? I actually questioned the product manager for HP Australia a few years back about the spyware HP ship with Pavilion and Presario home PC's and his answer was completely unsatisfactory. He said something to the effect of 'Backweb is designed to update customer's HP software remotely, including drivers, applications and other things. To my knowledge, this hasn't been implemented yet.

So the product manager of HP Australia not only doesn't know if it's been implemented yet, but he also is referring to something laying dormant for 10 years in their systems. Backweb software can potentially phone home and provide any and every detail about a customer. It's TSR, it's in memory ALL THE TIME, and hidden as a service.

It is so untrustworthy, HP themselves have renamed it in the add/remove programs as "Updates from HP" instead of backweb because customers thought it was spyware.

This latest development doesn't surprise me at all.

old rome....

[Himring]

CEO, who BTW was rewarded with $20.33M

Ah, for the days of rome, when the oligarchist would also be given 10 more personal legions....

Feels strange

[niceone]

Feels strange journalists suing for invasion of privacy - let's see: one bunch of people who invade people's privacy for money suing another bunch of people who invaded that first bunch of people's privacy for money for money.

(disclaimer: I used to work for hp back in the last century, although they never really asked me to be on the board or anything)

Re:Feels strange

[multisync]

let's see: one bunch of people who invade people's privacy for money suing another bunch of people who invaded that first bunch of people's privacy for money for money.

I'm sure if you put a little effort in to it you could recognize the difference between reporting on the activities of the board of directors of a publicly traded company vs. calling a business claiming to be someone you are not for the purpose of extracting information you are not legally entitled to possess from that business.

Hint: one of those activities is illegal.