HP pays $14.5m to end 'spy' probe
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Hewlett-Packard agrees to pay $14.5m to settle a lawsuit over its much-criticised probe into a boardroom leak.
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You'd have pretexted it HP - which faces US federal and state investigations for spying on board members and journalists - is co-sponsoring an award for "privacy innovation".â¦
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Hewlett-Packard Co dodged a prolonged PR nightmare by announcing yesterday it would pay just $14.5m to settle a civil case with California over allegations of unlawful spying on reporters and its directors during an internal probe of boardroom leaks to the media.
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Hewlett-Packard has agreed to a financial settlement with The New York Times and three Business Week magazine journalists in connection with the companyâs spying scandal.
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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC)&#160;has settled a complaint with a Web-based company it accused of selling people&#39;s telephone records without permission, the agency said Monday.The settlement with CEO Group, doing business as Check Em Out, bars the company and its operator Scott Joseph from marketing or selling phone records, and it requires the company to give up $25,000 of its profits from selling phone records. Selling phone records to third parties is illegal under federal law, the FTC had charged.The FTC in May 2006 filed complaints in U.S. court against five Web-based companies that obtained and sold confidential phone records to third parties. In addition to the settlement with CEO Group, the FTC has settled two other cases and obtained a default judgment against a fourth company. The complaint against the fifth company is still active.The FTC&#39;s complaints came after complaints from privacy groups and members of the U.S. Congress about pretexting, when someone obtains a telephone customers&#39; records without permission under false pretexts. In many cases, companies offering phone records over the Internet were calling telephone carriers and pretending to be the targeted customer. In September 2006,&#160;Hewlett-Packard revealed it had been spying on some of its board members and journalists in an attempt to uncover the source of boardroom leaks, and HP officials later said their investigators had used pretexting to obtain phone records.The Telecommunications Act of 1996 prohibits customers&#39; phone records from being disclosed unless &quot;upon affirmative written request by the customer.&quot; The FTC charged the five Web-based companies of engaging in unfair business practices.The settlement with CEO Group prohibits it from obtaining, marketing or selling consumer phone records or other consumer personal information except where allowed by law, the FTC said in a news release. The settlement, approved by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, includes a judgment of $222,381, the amount the company earned by selling phone records, but the defendants said they were able to pay only $25,000. If the court finds that the defendants misrepresented their finances, the entire amount will be due, the FTC said.
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(InfoWorld) - A criminal case against some of the people implicated in theÂ Hewlett-Packard pretexting scandalÂ may wrap up Thursday in a courtroom in San Jose, California. A hearing is scheduled in Santa Clara County Superior Court in the cases against former HP legal counsel Kevin Hunsaker, private investigator Ronald DeLia, and research consultant Matthew DePante. At a hearing in March, a state judge said charges against the three defendants would be dismissed if they performed 96 hours of community service and paid restitution to the victims. At that same hearing, state charges against former HP chairman Patricia DunnÂ were dismissedÂ altogether. Dunn was chair of HP in 2006 when the board authorized an investigation to find out which directors had been leaking details of confidential board deliberations to news reporters. The private investigative firms hired by HP engaged in a practice known as pretexting, in which they pretended to be someone else to obtain phone records of other individuals. HP directors, employees, and several reporters had their private phone records revealed under those false pretenses. The scandalÂ resulted in the departureÂ of three directors, including Dunn, from the HP board. Dunn and the three men had beenÂ chargedÂ with fraudulent wire communications, wrongful use of computer data, identity theft, and conspiracy, in a case brought by the Attorney General of California in October 2006. The hearing Thursday had originally been scheduled for sometime in September, but may have been moved up because the defendants met the judge's requirements for dismissal, said Carl Schulhof, a spokesman for the Superior Court. State charges were dropped against a fifth defendant in the case, Bryan Wagner, after he pleaded guilty in January to one count of conspiracy and one count of aggravated identity theft. He was a contractor who engaged in pretexting to gain access to phone records. Wagner's sentencing on the federal charges was postponed to October, his attorney Stephen Naratil, said Tuesday.
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Hewlett-Packard settled cases with The New York Times Company and three BusinessWeek journalists after being caught spying on reporters in 2006.
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Inky upside to murky mess The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) doesn't want to be left out of the Big Dig into HP's spy operations. The agency has broadened its probe of the company, asking for records tied to the resignation of board member Tom Perkins and documents related to HP's already infamous mole hunt.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - A U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee probing theÂ Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) pretexting case has issued more subpoenas to compel witness testimony at a Thursday hearing. The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Energy and Commerce Committee issued subpoenas Wednesday for five people identified as "pretexters," data brokers who sometimes obtain access to confidential records under false pretenses. HP has been embroiled in a scandal over its hiring of private investigators who engaged in possibly illegal pretexting to investigate news leaks from HP's board to reporters. Served with subpoenas, according to the Subcommittee, are: Bryan Wagner, a private investigator from Littleton, Colorado; Charles Kelly, of the CAS Agency in Villa Rica, Georgia; Cassandra Selvage of Eye in the Sky Investigations, of Dade City, Florida; Darren Brost, of Austin, Texas; and Valerie Preston from InSearchOf Inc., of Cooper City, Florida. Wagner was identified in a Wednesday Wall Street Journal article as a suspect in the pretexting of phone records of HP directors, employees and journalists who cover the Palo Alto, California technology company. The Journal reported that Wagner told an investigator that he smashed his computer to pieces with a hammer, destroying data that was saved on it. The article also said that the destruction of the computer may hamper an investigation by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer's office into possible illegal activity by people at HP or by the private investigators HP hired. The five who were subpoenaed Wednesday have been added to a list of witnesses that also includes HP's Chief Executive Officer and President Mark Hurd and former board chairman Patricia Dunn, who resigned last Friday because of the scandal. While Dunn and Hurd have volunteered to appear, two other HP executives involved in the investigation were subpoenaed: senior counsel Kevin Hunsaker and Global Security Manager Anthony Gentilucci. Hunsaker "left the company" and Gentilucci "resigned" effective Tuesday, said HP spokesman Ryan Donovan. Also subpoenaed are Ron DeLia, operator of Security Outsourcing Solutions Inc., a Needham, Massachusetts, private investigations firm, and Joe Depante, owner of Action Research Group, of Melbourne, Florida. HP has acknowledged hiring both those firms in its leak investigation and that they used pretexting to track down personal phone records. Â
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As expected, Hewlett-Packard and the California state attorney general's office have reached a settlement in a civil suit pertaining to the company's methods in investigating its own board members. The company will pay the state $14.5 million, and in exchange, the state has agreed to an injunction against it pursuing any further civil matters against its employees, executives, directors, or the company itself.
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By JORDAN ROBERTSON  SAN FRANCISCO - The congressional panel investigating Hewlett-Packard Co.'s boardroom spying probe has demanded that CEO Mark Hurd explain $1.37 million worth of options he exercised just before the scandal became public, two congressmen said Wednesday.
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(InfoWorld) - In one of his first public acts to address the burgeoning Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) spy scandal, Chief Executive Officer Mark Hurd plans to brief reporters Friday about the findings of an analysis conducted by the company's law firm. HP retained Morgan, Lewis & Bockius for the outside analysis of the company's actions in trying to find the source of a boardroom news leak. The scandal led toÂ the resignation of company Chairman Patricia Dunn, who will turn over that job to Hurd in January. Dunn and Hurd have said they knew about the operation, but insist they never approved of the possible illegal methods used by third-party investigators to obtain communications records of reporters and some HP employees and directors. "What began as an effort to prevent the leaks of confidential information from HP's board room ended up heading in directions that were never anticipated," Hurd said in a written statement. However, company e-mail records seem to indicate that both executives knew about the investigators' "pretexting" practices while they were going on, according toÂ recent stories in the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Pretexting involves pretending to be someone to obtain their telephone records. In Friday's meeting, a representative from the law firm will share its findings, describing "exactly what took place and when," Hurd said. Dunn has also saidÂ she will share more information about the episode, promising to "set the record straight" about allegations that she oversaw the illegal operation. Morgan Lewis will also represent the company in government inquiries such as criminal investigations by the California and Massachusetts attorneys general, and by the U.S. House of Representatives. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer has said that he has enough evidence to indict certain people at HP and its contractors with crimes related to their methods in obtaining private phone records of reporters, board members and other employees. Â
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Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) has agreed to a $14.5 million settlement in the California civil lawsuit related to the company's spying scandal.
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Hurd silent on growing scandal HP's spy fiasco went from bad to catastrophic yesterday, as the company admitted to having tapped the phone logs of nine reporters.â¦
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California's Attorney General announced a $14.5 million civil settlement with Hewlett-Packard Co. this afternoon, three months after the Silicon Valley computer giant was engulfed in an ethics and spying scandal that led to criminal charges against former top executives.
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(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) agreed to a US$14.5 million settlement in the California civil lawsuitÂ related to the company's spying scandal. Under terms of the settlement with the California attorney general, HP will pay $13.5 million to create a "Privacy and Piracy Fund" for law enforcement activities related to privacy and intellectual property rights operated in the state Attorney General's Office. The company will also pay $650,000 in civil penalties and $350,000 to cover expenses of the investigation, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer announced Thursday afternoon. HP executives and private investigators retained by the company still face criminal charges in the scandal, which involves the alleged use of "pretexting," or pretending to be someone to obtain their personal phone records.
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A Santa Clara County judge dismissed the remaining charges against three defendants in the Hewlett-Packard Co. boardroom spying case Thursday, calling their conduct a "betrayal of trust and honor" that nonetheless did not rise to the level of criminal activity.