Hewlett Packard Spying Scandal Reporting

Just a quick word on the HP spying scandal (tons of links around on this).

I find the episode quite amazing - and really a very bad commentary on HP, a company I have always admired. Identity theft, which was essentially used here, is a serious crime. Patricia Dunn should resign immediately. However, you're not interested in my opinion on this.

Instead I wanted to remark particularly on the press treatment of this article, as this is a topic near and dear to my heart as you frequent readers may know!

The issue has gained huge notoriety in the US, perhaps unsurprisingly, and most articles are indeed highly critical. I would note however a bit too much focus on the fact that certain journalists phone records were tapped. Let's face it, it's bad whoever you are (and a few journalists themselves are not above similarly illegal activities - hands up News of the World).

Whereas in the US the article has been widely reported, in the UK, it's been consigned to the business pages as far as I can see. Fair enough? Perhaps. But I can't help feeling that if this story had been about another smaller company a few miles further south, and a certain Mr Jobs had been behind this, it would have been all over the main news pages, and probably even the Daily Hate (where the HP incident has not even been mentioned at all).

Tags: HP, Hewlett Packard, Spying, Apple