HP Pays California $14.5 Million For Pretexting... But Will Use The Money To Fight Piracy?
from the say-what? dept
So the press is all abuzz with the news that HP has settled the civil suit filed against it for its little pretexting adventure. They're paying $14.5 million to the state in exchange for no civil suit from the Attorney General's office. The company still could face other charges, including from the federal government, but we'll see. Still, there's a very odd part to the settlement. Most of the money will go to a fund to help California fight intellectual property violations. Technically the fund is for both that and privacy issues, called the "Privacy and Piracy Fund." We can understand the privacy part -- since that's what HP violated -- but we're still scratching our heads over the piracy part. What do intellectual property violations (which, again, aren't really "piracy") have to do with the fact that HP used social engineering fraud tactics to spy on a whole bunch of people both inside and outside the company?
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Hmm... by Aaron on Dec 7th, 2006 @ 6:05pm
Wonder if HP would consider this a bargain for the information they obtained?
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Mark Hurd must have a friend... by nonuser on Dec 7th, 2006 @ 6:19pm
who's a genius at negotiation. This likely takes care of a longstanding complaint against the AG's office from another important California constituency.
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Part of a pattern by nedu on Dec 7th, 2006 @ 10:27pm
Remember last week's news?
MPAA Kills Anti-Pretexting Bill (Dec 1, 2006):
This looks like the same pattern.
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It has nothing to do with HP's deeds by Shohat on Dec 7th, 2006 @ 11:06pm
They just wanted some good digital cause to donate the money to, and both Privace and Piracy are problematic issues. Pretty simple .
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Re: It has nothing to do with HP's deeds by Anonymous Coward on Dec 7th, 2006 @ 11:20pm
Privacy is a 'problematic issue' because of companies like HP to begin with. And to think that there isn't some special-interest motive behind this is pretty ignorant (IMHO).
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duh by Paul on Dec 7th, 2006 @ 11:51pm
Pretexting is basically pirating private information, duh.
/sarcasm
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