The Hewlett-Packard Company (HP), is one of the largest and wealthiest corporations in the world. Perhaps you all aren’t fully aware of all its products you probably use every single day of your life. HP creates everything from printers and laptops to digital cameras. It is by far the company of the 21st century.
But of course, with major success comes major controversy. The latest involves chairwoman and former CEO Patricia Dunn. This manipulative woman allegedly hired investigators to secretly obtain confidential phone records of nine journalists, including reporters for the CNET Networks, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, adding a bizarre twist to this already highly suspicious investigation. Dunn, of course, claims she did not know beforehand the methods the investigators used to try and determine the source of the leak.
The group of spies had used a technique known as “pretexting.” This highly illegal practice basically involves one person posing as someone else to obtain information. Pretexting is quite common among Internet frauds, which often buy or steal social security numbers.
In a recent statement, CNET said it takes the hacking of its employees’ records very seriously.
“These actions not only violated the privacy rights of our employees, but also the rights of all reporters to protect their confidential sources. We are continuing to gather all relevant facts and to analyze appropriate next steps. We have requested that HP provide us with a full accounting of all actions taken in connection with this matter.”
The alleged snooping, announced Sept. 14 by the company, follows recent revelations about similar spying by HP’s hired investigators on its own board members. This was part of an effort to discover who on the board leaked inside information to the media. Obviously, Hewlett-Packard’s business ethics have been brutally panned by everyone around them.
The recent media attention could not have arrived at a worse time.
HP is finally emerging from a major financial slump and is regaining its place among the technology industry’s leaders.
As usual, just about everyone has an opinion about this week’s most scandalous corporate drama.
Shawn Berman, a management professor at Santa Clara University, says Hewlett-Packard’s behavior is Big Brother-like and declared that the scope of its board’s mismanagement is breathtaking.
“I’ve seen this whole saga as really pushing the frontier as to what’s acceptable in the world of ethics,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any board that has spied on its own members and private citizens.”
As a result of all this media hoopla, HP has announced that Mark Hurd, the current CEO, will replace Patricia Dunn. This will happen after the HP board meeting, which will take place on January 18th, 2007.
This entire scandal may have been caused by this woman, and she’s not even being fired. She gets to hang around for another four months until she gracefully makes her exit as chairwoman.
This whole HP controversy leaves us to one inevitable conclusion: You just can’t trust anyone these days! And so fellow Forty-Niners, we will leave you with a quotation so profound, so deep, so powerful, that only the stupendous J.K. Rowling could have written it.
To quote Mad-Eye Moody (Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher from “Harry Potter and the “Goblet of Fire”), “Constant vigilance!”