HP’s spying on journalists ‘PR blunder of the year’

Steve Safran December 19th, 2006

Wow. Talk about a tough year to pick the costliest public relations fiasco. Certainly, ‘macacca’ cost Sen. George Allen his job and possibly cost the Republicans control of the Senate. So many wonderful options. But PR Week has chosen Hewlett-Packard former Chairwoman Patricia Dunn’s “let’s spy on journalists to get some dirt on them” initiative as the costliest PR blunder of the year. They’re being literal on this one: HP had to pay $14.5 million to settle civil suits. That’s a lot of $200 printers.(Third item down.)