In a small strike against personal rights, many businesses breathed a sigh of relief as the state of California rejected a bill that would make pretexting illegal. Pretexting, the act of deceiving employees into revealing information, treads on dangerous ground and was partially to blame for the recent firings and lawsuits over at HP. The bill was struck down, not out of concerns for ethics, but more because the MPAA wants it that way:
Bill SB1666 was considered to prohibit companies from using pretexting practices in order to spy on or obtain information from employees. In fact, the State Senate voted in favor of bill SB1666 30 to 0 until the MPAA showed up. Lobbying its stance against bill SB1666, the MPAA claimed that bill SB1666 would impede on efforts to find pirates and illegal downloader's.
Putrid, almost. Lying on a resume is enough to get someone fired, but apparently the company in question is more than able to lie right back to their own staff. We've probably not seen the last of this. An existing bill prevents the use of such practices in certain areas only, but leaves many wide open.