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AnonymousInactiveHP: ‘We will not cheat’
HP should be ordered to do public service for its transgressions
A
chunk of the Hewlett-Packard spy scandal ended yesterday not with a
bang but a snivel.A snivel, because the $14.5 million penalty the
government has levied on HP amounts to a “tsk, tsk,” for a company with
a $109 billion market capitalization.A snivel because the money will go
into a kitty that the California attorney general’s office can use to
investigate other companies. During the heat of the revelations, HP
executives asserted that other companies have employed the same
pretexting techniques–in some cases, even the same investigators. The
California attorney general’s office apparently spent $350,000
investigating the charges against HP.With the $13.5 million that HP is
now contributing to the “Privacy and Piracy Fund” for investigating
other allegations about lapses in consumer privacy or intellectual
property piracy, the government could, in theory, chase down another
half dozen or more companies that have been spying on people they don’t
trust–whether those people happen to be board members, employees or
journalists. Then it can scold them too–and move on.Like a grumpy
parent, the government frequently slaps down extra regulations when
companies have gotten out of line. Yet it’s not clear that those
regulations benefit anyone but the lawyers who get paid to enforce
them. The U.S. government spent more than a decade pursuing antitrust
actions against Microsoft, to the delight of its competitors. During
the height of that action, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates repeatedly
said that he was more worried about some unknown upstart snatching
Microsoft’s business than he was about government action. Like it or
not, Gates was essentially right–and Google is proving his
point.Threatening to chase after companies that abuse privacy
rights–particularly when the penalties are tiny–won’t change
behavior. Adding more regulation to HP’s internal operations will not
change those practices, either.I’m more of a fan of public service as a
penalty for transgressions. HP should be required to show the world the
value of ethical behavior. How exactly should it do this? Perhaps it
should be required to give printer cartridges to California schools
with wrappers that say “Don’t cheat!” Maybe its executives should be
required to write “I promise not to spy on people!” a hundred times and
then post the papers on billboards on Highway 101.I asked some school
kids how they would punish someone who snuck a look in a private
notebook: they said that they should have the right to look in the
other guy’s notebook. That’s not a bad idea–maybe HP should award
major news organizations an all-day pass allowing journalists to poke
into filing cabinets and e-mail queues.If you’ve got a great
suggestion, let me know–maybe we’ll post a list and HP will
voluntarily do the right thing.Public opinion can be the strongest
medicine of all. We need to demand that companies do the right
thing–and praise the ones who do it and shun those who don’t. -
AuthorDecember 13, 2006 at 1:08 PM
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