HP Pays California $14.5 Million For Pretexting... But Will Use The Money To Fight Piracy?

from the say-what? dept

Thu, Dec 7th 2006 5:00pm — Mike Masnick

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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Aaron, 7 Dec 2006 @ 6:05pm

Hmm...
Wonder if HP would consider this a bargain for the information they obtained?
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nonuser, 7 Dec 2006 @ 6:19pm

Mark Hurd must have a friend...
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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nedu, 7 Dec 2006 @ 10:27pm

Part of a pattern
Remember last week's news?

MPAA Kills Anti-Pretexting Bill (Dec 1, 2006):
A tough California bill that would have prohibited companies and individuals from using deceptive "pretexting" ruses to steal private information about consumers was killed after determined lobbying by the motion picture industry, Wired News has learned.

This looks like the same pattern.
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Shohat, 7 Dec 2006 @ 11:06pm

It has nothing to do with HP's deeds
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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Anonymous Coward, 7 Dec 2006 @ 11:20pm

Re: It has nothing to do with HP's deeds
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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Paul, 7 Dec 2006 @ 11:51pm

duh
Pretexting is basically pirating private information, duh.

/sarcasm
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