NYT: News Corp Hacked Rival US Company

[FourScore]

Mon Jul 18, 2011 at 09:27 PM PDT
NYT: News Corp Hacked Rival US Company
by The AnomalyFollow

A recent story in the Nixonian News Corporation saga describes how subsidiary News America Marketing broke into the computer system of a rival company:

In the case of News America Marketing, its obscure but profitable in-store and newspaper insert marketing business, the News Corporation has paid out about $655 million to make embarrassing charges of corporate espionage and anticompetitive behavior go away...

In 2009, a federal case in New Jersey brought by a company called Floorgraphics went to trial, accusing News America of, wait for it, hacking its way into Floorgraphics’s password protected computer system.

The complaint summed up the ethos of News America nicely, saying it had “illegally accessed plaintiff’s computer system and obtained proprietary information” and “disseminated false, misleading and malicious information about the plaintiff.”

News Corp was forced to pay the hush money after an ex-employee filed a RICO suit against them:

But now there may be a smoking gun in the form of an ex-employee who is alleging unsavory conduct on the part of his erstwhile employer. Robert Emmel, a former account manager who worked in in-store marketing, was fired late last year; a few months later, after Floorgraphics subpoenaed him as part of its lawsuit, Emmel revealed he had kept a copy of his computer hard drive because, he said in a deposition, he "had some concerns about some of the business practices that News America had engaged in." Just what is on those disks is still unknown, but News America isn't taking any chances: In April the company sued Emmel personally, alleging, among other things, breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets. Emmel countersued under Georgia's RICO statute.

The charges in Emmel's countersuit read like headlines ripped from Murdoch's New York Post. Among them: "the extortionate use of economic fear," "theft and scheme to commit wire fraud," and the allegation that News America broke into Floorgraphics' computer system 11 times during one three-month span.

Emmel also alleges that News America's president, Christopher Mixson, offered him $30,000 in "severance" after Emmel told a colleague he was weighing speaking with the state of Minnesota's attorney general's office, which is a co-plaintiff in one of the lawsuits...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/19/996087/-NYT:-News-Corp-Hacked-Rival-US-Company?via=siderec

[aquart]

1. Is there a law against industrial espionage?

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Yes, yes there is

this is the beginning of the houding of Newscorp in the US... (Hounding according to news corp of course)

[Uncle Joe]

3. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, FourScore.

[FourScore]

4. Always a pleasure, Uncle Joe!

:hi:

[cbdo2007]

5. k

[FourScore]

6. kick

[beac]

7. K&R! n/t