HP CEO's Browsing History Used Against Him

theodp writes "Anything you browse can and will be used against you. An investigation of ousted HP CEO Mark Hurd's surfing history reportedly convinced the HP Board that Hurd had had a personal relationship with sexual harassment accuser Jodie Fisher, even if not sexual. Just the latest example of how HP 'work[s] together to create a culture of inclusion built on trust, respect and dignity for all.' The WSJ reported a person close to the investigation said Hurd had looked at clips from racy films featuring Ms. Fisher, a former actress, while someone 'familiar with Mr. Hurd's thinking' said he merely did a Google search of 10 minutes or so. One wonders how many more 'personal relationships' with Ms. Fisher the browser histories of HP's 304,000 worldwide employees might reveal. BTW, nice to see that Hurd has made it to HP's ex-CEO-Hall-of-Fame page."

Comments

Some other tidbits from his browsing history

[Pojut]

bangedup.com

cracked.com

www.yzzerdd.com

naughtyceoassistants.com

google search: how to sexually harrass someone and not get caught

Re:Some other tidbits from his browsing history

[whisper_jeff]

google search: how to sexually harrass someone and not get caught

Clearly he should have used Bing for that search...

HA HA

[JamesP]

Next time be really nice to IT

Or request your own internet connection, not going through proxies or anything

But better still, don't be a moron and look at anything NSFW (at least not intentionally) while at work

Funny story, my last company's proxy would prevent us from apt-get upgrade. Why? libsexy /o\

Re:HA HA

[betterunixthanunix]

But better still, don't be a moron and look at anything NSFW (at least not intentionally) while at work

Honestly, I wonder about people who do such things. Not just at work, but also in public places. I was on Amtrak once, and I sat next to someone who had a pornographic picture as his desktop background. In plain sight, on a train filled with other people, and no attempt was made to hide it.

I have no problem with porn, or looking for "racy" clips of your former-actress-coworker, but I would think that people would want to be a bit more private about these sorts of things. Surely the CEO of HP has a home where he can privately look at whatever he wants.

Re:HA HA

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he doesn't see anything wrong with it and doesn't care about your opinion?

Re:HA HA

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'd assume that you don't make it to "CEO" without learning that, while the rules usually don't apply to you, they can suddenly apply good and hard if, for other reasons entirely, you are no longer considered to be desirable...

Re:HA HA

[h4rm0ny]

OTH, he probably felt he was doing nothing wrong until he got caught.

When you're working at that level (CEO at a company as big as that), then your work and personal time tend to blur. In fact, ignore "tend to" you lose all separation. People call you up with work problems all the time, you're never disconnected from your email, you spend so much time with your PA that they're as much family member as colleague. And don't even mention the travelling. So you're hardly likely to carry two laptops everywhere you go or swap from one to the other constantly.

It's easy for people here to say "shouldn't have done this through work account" but in reality it's not so simple. And the argument of misusing the company's resources is valid, but the salary and expenses (legitimate expenses) of someone in that position are so high that it would seem absurd to such a person to say they were stealing from the company. They could (and do) repay the debt by working an extra five minutes that they're supposes to. Well, except that these sorts of jobs don't come with "forty hours per week" on the contract, but the point stands. CEO of a company isn't a job, it's a lifestyle.

Re:HA HA

[bmajik]

The other day i was sitting at a stop light, and i looked over at the pickup next to me, and hanging from the rear-view mirror was a picture of a naked woman with enormous breasts.

And i thought "hrm.. wonder what the guy who drives this truck looks like?"

And i noticed a man driving, and a woman sitting in the passenger seat, i.e., a couple.

My thoughts wondered about the dynamics of that situation. Was that a woman who lived in an oppressive relationship, where her sense of self, and her idea of self-worth, and her opinion, were all suppressed? Was she desperately looking for a way out? Was this the best she could do?

Or, did she just not care about such things at all? Has she gotten over the fact that men are visual animals with a natural lust for the physical form? Does she simply accept him at his nature, and realize that it isn't a reflection of her or what he thinks of her?

I would wager that 80% of the over-the-road trucks in the USA have a 2D naked woman somewhere in the cab. It's as much of being a trucker as the CB radio.

For some reason, its more acceptable in a trucker cab, because that is "more private" than the glass box of a pickup cab, and that is "more private" than a laptop screen (to some people).

But modern work/life dynamics (and trucking regulation -- thanks DOT) are such that the trucker is in his office less than the information worker is in his (i.e. their computer screen is on...)

But i also think there is a just-below-the-water insidiousness in these judgements. I see a naked woman in a pickup, and i shift my gaze to see what the person _looks like_ who's driving the truck. I have some kind of inbuilt bias about what kind of person lets me see that they have naked pictures.

I expect most slashdotters are like this -- we've been tought that naked pictures is something to "get caught with", and that someone who might display them publicly has something wrong with them, and as such, when we see them in public life, we wonder what kind of wrong-person is responsible.

There is this idea that truckers can have naked pictures in their offices, and that CEOs can't.

Why are CEOs held to a higher "moral" or "ethical" standard than truckers? Aren't both of them just people?

Nice to see nothing's changed there

[elrous0]

Anyone remember their previous board spying scandal? Must be a REAL fun place to work.

The HP Way is dead.

[happy_place]

HP died with Lew Platt. Carly Fiorina was a trainwreck. The HP Way is gone and done, and has been since the first layoffs just prior to 9/11.

Re:the story summary is rather sympathetic to hurd

[betterunixthanunix]

sexual harassment is pretty serious

The last time I worked for a big corporation, we were given a guide to avoiding sexual harassment. Already, this should suggest to you that "sexual harassment" covers more than you think it does -- after all, we were given a guide to avoiding it, not just told to show respect to our coworkers. The guide indicated that pinning up a swimsuit calendar in your cubicle is considered sexual harassment. So is look at sexy (not necessarily nude or pornographic) pictures on your computer, since a female coworker might see the display and get offended.

Sorry, but ever since then, I have been suspicious of "sexual harassment" claims, particularly when details are scant and the claims come out of a corporation. If one her first day at HP, her first encounter with Mr. Hurd was him grabbing her butt in the copy room and asking her to get naked, then fine, it is sexual harassment. Without details indicating that, though, I would not jump to conclusions.

No Sympathy

[whisper_jeff]

While the summary is full of sympathy for Hurd, implying that he was the wronged party in this situation (boggles the mind...), I have absolutely no sympathy for him. Ignoring the fact that he got a rather sizable golden handshake which would enable most people to retire in luxury, he was stupid. When you're in a management position, especially a senior management position (such as the CEO...), you have an obligation to not cross personal boundaries. Members of senior management should know better. It's inappropriate and it's the sort of thing that leads to trouble. Shockingly, it lead to trouble.

No sympathy. I have no clue if he was a good CEO or not, but he was a stupid one, that's for certain.

What is the Real Reason Hurd Was Fired?

[eldavojohn]

sexual harassment is pretty serious. one would think we should be more sympathetic to jodie fisher, not hurd

I agree, sexual harassment is a very serious problem and should not be taken lightly. But could you present the evidence of sexual harassment? Larry Ellison said of it '"The H.P. board admits that it fully investigated the sexual harassment claims against Mark and found them to be utterly false." Furthermore the reason Hurd was fired appeared to be "numerous instances where [Hurd's love interest, Jodie Fisher] received compensation and/or expense reimbursement where there was not a legitimate business purpose, as well as numerous instances where inaccurate expense reports were submitted by Mark or on his behalf that intended to or had the effect of concealing Mark's personal relationship with the contractor." If that's true, misuse of company funds is also serious but not on the level of sexual harassment.

oh right, his browsing history was used against him. therefore, we should be sympathetic to him (rolls eyes)

My concern here -- and what I think the general readership thinks -- is that Hurd did some questionable things or possibly made some enemies and so they tried to dig up anything they could on them. When the sexual harassment charges didn't stick well enough, they used a company policy that everyone is guilty of: using company resources and time to google silly things or read tabloids or do things unrelated to work. "Racy" means "Mildly risque, exciting." So he visited some mildly risque sites?

Basically this looks to be a scenario where Hurd upset someone and they simply looked through his browsing history in order to find a reason to terminate him. Are they constantly searching through browsing histories of all 304,000 employees to find which employment they should terminate? No, they are not. You speak so highly of ethics regarding sexual harassment but what about the ethics of terminating the employment of just one person when he is no more guilty than thousands of other employees -- which you also have the means and option to investigate.

Re:What is the Real Reason Hurd Was Fired?

[johnhp]

Nice try Mark, but I think the board's decision is final.

Re:What is the Real Reason Hurd Was Fired?

[corbettw]

If that's true, misuse of company funds is also serious but not on the level of sexual harassment.

Seriously, you think sexual harassment (an entirely civil matter) is worse than embezzlement (a criminal matter)? How does that make a lick of sense?

What is sexual harrassment?

[BenEnglishAtHome]

There's plenty of confusion about the basic definition of sexual harrassment. I've been a POSH (Prevention of Sexual Harrassment) trainer at my employer and I can tell you from hard experience - most people have no idea.

In broad strokes, then, here's what you need to know.

Most people think in terms of a "reasonable person" criteria. That's a relic of the past. When sexual harrassment first got major corp attention, the people in charge tended to apply common sense. They'd ask "Would a reasonable person consider this case to be sexual harrassment?" This seemed like a good approach and it did cover the basics. No reasonable person would disagree that "Sleep with me if you want this promotion" is harrassment.

The "reasonable person" standard, however, did not address the very wide middle ground. Are dirty jokes harrassing? If not occasionally, then how often? How many per day should be allowed? Should you be held responsible for being unintentially overheard? The "reasonable person" criteria failed to address all these at first blush.

Now, in my organization, we expected people to speak up for themselves. If someone felt harrassed and said "That makes me uncomfortable", then the person doing the harrassing action no longer had an excuse. Even if the harrasser felt that a "reasonble person" would not be harrassed by the situation, the harrasser now knew that their criteria was misused in re the person who made the complaint.

In practice, this meant that anyone could get away with anything (except the obvious aforementioned "sex for a job" situation I previously mentioned) until they were put on warning. Since it was up to the victim to issue the warning and since the victims frequently felt they were rendered powerless by the situation, warnings weren't issued. Bad manners continued to be displayed. Major harrassment incidents stopped but more subtle things that really do impact the bottom line (things like "a pervasive atmosphere of harrassment" or however you want to phrase it) continued unabated.

The "reasonable person" criteria had to be abandoned.

The new criteria is pretty simple. The victim defines the crime. If someone says something is sexual harrassment, it is.

The current situation, where *anything* is sexual harrassment if someone wants to feel they're being harrassed, results in lots of counter-intuitive weirdness. It seems crazy that if I stick up a calendar from a local sports team that has a picture of the cheerleaders on it, it's harrassment. That harrassment may not be in full flower but you better believe I'm going to be told to take it down before some super-sensitive idiot sees it and gets their feelings hurt.

As stupid as this seems, it actually works out better in practice. By "over-specifying" the defintion of sexual harrassment, the oppressive environments that were able to continue to exist under the "reasonable person" criteria are resolved. Yes, us old white men feel a bit put upon because we can't make dirty blonde jokes. But the upside is that the whole place works better and everyone can better contribute up to their potential.

Bottom line for people who don't work in big-corp type environments: the definition of "sexual harrassment" is much broader than seems reasonable. For practical reasons, learned the hard way over decades, the situation must be this way.

I don't like it. It offends my sense of justice. But I've seen it done both ways and in practice, the unreasonable, nanny-state version of sexual harrassment remediation just works better for everyone involved.

Nonsensical evidence

[biscuitlover]

If you were working at a company and you found out that someone you worked with had been in some adult movies, wouldn't you be curious enough to google them and check it out? I sure as hell would.

I can't speak about the rest of the case, but evidence of harassment or a personal relationship this is not.

How is NSFW worse than something else?

[Fastfwd]

How does your morals matter?

How is someone looking at NSFW content worse than someone reading /. ? Does it somehow mean that the person is working even less because it's also amoral to you?
Maybe ./ is not so bad because to many of us it can be work related at least a little. But my argument still stands. Either you are allowed to browse the 'net for non-strictly work content or not, content should not matter.

Re:How is NSFW worse than something else?

[nedlohs]

Because non-sociopaths actually consider other people occasionaly.

The chances of someone being offended by seeing slashdot on your computer screen is pretty small, small enough to take the chance. And society as a whole would consider them to be the problem if they are offended.

The chances of someone being offended by seeing pornography on your computer screen is a bit larger, large enough to try and avoid the situation. And society as a whole would consider you to be the problem when someone is offended.

In the workplace there's the added joys of getting sued for sexual harassment because of the "hostile environment" created by having pornography on your screen for all your fellow workers to see.

Sure if your screen is completely private that isn't a problem though I'm sure that fact that someone shouldn't have been on that side of the desk in your office isn't going to save you from losing a sexual harrassment case. And if someone does find out about it they risk having any sexual harrassment liabilities be for the entire company and not just you if they don't try and do something about it.

Slacking off for a minute or 10 isn't something most companies care that much about (particularly amongst salaried productive staff - an assembly line worker is a different situation), putting the company at risk in a multi-million dollar sexual harassment lawsuit and even more damage in public image is something most companies care about.

There are reasons the label is NSFW.

Rights of company versus rights of individual

[Kupfernigk]

And this is why I am glad I live in Europe and not in the US. You are describing three well known problems in US culture:

• No win no fee litigation
• Free comment allowed on sub judice matters
• Lack of rights of the individual in the workplace

Although European (EU mainstream) countries are far from perfect in this, legal restraints make it much harder for ambulance chasers to make fortunes by publicly exaggerating allegations, and employment law means that there are proper remedies at reasonable cost which means that companies are not exposed to excessive risks from ordinary human behaviour. (I might add that we don't suffer so much from kneejerk Protestant fundamentalism, but I think that's a sideshow.)

Interestingly, when I had to do the training in the UK, our (US) trainer was quite clued up on UK law, and commented that a number of the overbearing rules that get applied in the US would be rejected by employment tribunals in the UK as unreasonable grounds for dismissal ("you guys are lucky").

Bottom line: your comments may well be correct for the US as it is, but are a sad commentary on the US legal profession and the relationships inside US companies.

Re:the story summary is rather sympathetic to hurd

[couchslug]

"Already, this should suggest to you that "sexual harassment" covers more than you think it does -- after all, we were given a guide to avoiding it, not just told to show respect to our coworkers."

I use the military "senior NCO self-defense" method though I'm now retired. I don't speak to female co-workers unless it's pure business, I don't socialize with female co-workers, and I'm flawlessly polite to them. I avoid being unaccompanied with them in the same room, but do it subtly.
I ensure they are assigned and evaluated fairly, but given the choice I'd rather keep females at the workplace far enough away to avoid any perception of conflict-of-interest.

Military-origin Protip:
Keep at least one kickass female supervisor around to discipline other females. Bonus if that female is non-White. There are plenty of good females who want to do their job, but the game is what it is and it doesn't respond favorably to resistance.