HP settles corporate spying case

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BRIAN WATT: Hewlett-Packard yesterday agreed to pay $14.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the state of California. Attorney General Bill Lockyer accused the company of unfair business practices as part of the company’s big pre-texting scandal. Marketplace’s Lisa Napoli takes a look at where that money’s going.

LISA NAPOLI: The bulk of the fine, $13.5 million dollars, will help fund investigations into other privacy rights cases.

Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center applauds the move.

MARC ROTENBERG: This fund is an innovative approach and makes some sense, to make more resources available to try to protect consumer privacy, and that’s a good thing.

Identity theft expert Bob Sullivan agrees — to a point.

BOB SULLIVAN: I think the folks who were actually spied on and had their cell phone bills pulled up might question if a $13 million fund is quite of enough of a deterrent to any other company that might do this in the future.

Of course, the fact that HP’s chairwoman lost her job and she and others face criminal charges might be.

In Los Angeles, I’m Lisa Napoli for Marketplace.