HP chairman steps down; European states consider legal action against Google

HP chairman Ray Lane stepped down last week, just four weeks after an influential advisory firm called for his removal as chairman.

Lane previously attracted criticism for his role in HP’s acquisition of software company Autonomy, which had significant revenue drops post acquisition.

In early March, Institutional Shareholder Services recommended HP shareholders vote against Lane’s re-election as chairman at HP’s annual meeting.

Lane narrowly kept his position, attracting only 59% of voting shares at the election.

Now, Lane has stepped down as chairman.

HP's Ray Lane. Image courtesy of HP

“After reflecting on the stockholder vote last month, I’ve decided to step down as executive chairman to reduce any distraction from HP’s ongoing turnaround,” Lane said in a statement.

Lane will remain on as a director and board member. Director Ralph Whitworth will serve as interim chairman until a permanent replacement is found.

HP directors John Hammergren and G Kennedy Thompson will also exit the board, despite narrowly keeping their seats in the March election.

Prior to the annual meeting, several firms called for shareholders to vote against re-electing Hammergren and Thompson. New York City Comptroller John Liu previously said the pair were responsible for approving several poor acquisitions that led to US$17 billion losses for HP.

European states consider legal action against Google

Regulators in six European states are considering legal action against Google after the company refused to change its privacy policy.

Google last year consolidated 60 of its privacy policies into one and began combining data collected on users across its services - including YouTube and Gmail - without giving users the ability to opt out.

In response, 29 regulators across Europe launched a joint inquiry into the move, ultimately declaring: “Combining personal data on such a large scale creates high risks to the privacy of users.”

The group of regulators said Google should therefore “modify its practices when combining data across services for these purposes”, giving Google until February to make changes.

Specifically, the inquiry said Google should:

• “reinforce users’ consent to the combination of data for the purposes of service improvements, development of new services, advertising and analytics. This could be realized by giving users the opportunity to choose when their data are combined, for instance with dedicated buttons in the services (cf. button “Search Plus Your World”);
• offer an improved control over the combination of data by simplifying and centralizing the right to object (opt-out) and by allowing users to choose for which service their data are combined;
• adapt the tools used by Google for the combination of data so that it remains limited to the authorized purposes, e.g. by differentiating the tools used for security and those used for advertising.”

But the company did not make such changes.

Now, regulators from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Britain have begun the process of looking at penalties.

“We have put in place a countdown for Google now. Promises to change will no longer be enough,” said Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, president of France’s CNIL, the organisation that led the initial inquiry.

Each of the six states will undertake its own inquiry to determine if Google broke their national laws, using the joint inquiry as a basis, and may impose fines on the company.

But Google insists its privacy “respects European law”, according to spokesperson Al Verney.