Spam Or Not? You Decide:

[Atrocities]

THIS IS A LEGAL NOTICE THAT MAY PERTAIN TO YOU REGARDING THE SETTLEMENT OF A CLASS ACTION INVOLVING CERTAIN HEWLETT-PACKARD ("HP") COMPUTERS.

THIS COURT-ORDERED NOTICE MAY AFFECT YOUR RIGHTS. PLEASE READ IT CAREFULLY. IT WAS SENT FROM AN AUTOMATED SYSTEM AND REPLIES WILL NOT BE ANSWERED.

CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT NOTICE

Melissa Dukes and Thomas J. Dolan v. Hewlett-Packard Company

Case No. CV-2002-270

(Circuit Court of Phillips County, Arkansas)

If you are the original purchaser or recipient of a particular model of HP brand computer after September 1, 2001, you may be entitled to relief under a proposed class action settlement.


YOUR RIGHTS MAY BE AFFECTED. THIS NOTICE IS ONLY A BRIEF SUMMARY. YOU SHOULD OBTAIN THE FULL NOTICE OF CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT ("CLASS NOTICE") AS SPECIFIED BELOW.


What is this lawsuit about?

The lawsuit the Court preliminarily approved for settlement as a nationwide class action and this notice is titled Melissa Dukes and Thomas J. Dolan, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, v. Hewlett-Packard Company, Case No. CV-2002-270. Plaintiffs allege that HP committed deceptive and unfair trade practices because HP allegedly did not disclose to Plaintiffs and Class Members that HP: (a) placed recovery software on certain PC hard disk drives, which reduced the storage space on their computer hard drives; (b) did not provide them CD-ROMs containing recovery software; and, (c) loaded a version of the Windows XP operating system that did not include the "ValueAdd" and "Support" folders, which were included in stand-alone versions of Windows XP available for purchase separately. Plaintiffs claim that the foregoing practices caused damages to them and the Class. However, HP believes and contends that the current configuration of the Class PC Models is preferred, and that hard drive recovery is superior to recovery with CDs. HP denies any and all liability for the claims alleged in Plaintiffs_ lawsuit. By preliminarily approving the Settlement of this lawsuit, the Court has not decided in favor of the Plaintiffs or HP.

Who Is The "Class" Of Consumers Covered By This Settlement?

If you are the original purchaser or recipient of one of the Class PC Models listed in Exhibit A to the Class Notice, then your HP computer is a model included in the Settlement and you are a member of the Class. Excluded from the Class are: employees of HP and persons closely associated with HP, persons or entities involved in the manufacturing of the Class PC Models, resellers or distributors of the Class PC Models, and any persons or entities that have previously obtained from HP the specific relief provided for in the Settlement.

What are My Options if I am a Class Member?

You May File a Claim to Receive the Settlement Benefits. Class Members must submit a properly completed Requested Relief Form by September 9, 2005. Class Members may complete a Requested Relief Form, or request a copy of the form, online at http://www.computersettlement.com/.

You May do Nothing, Remain in the Settlement Class, but Receive no Benefits. By doing nothing you consent to remain a member of the settlement class. You will not receive the available benefits and you will be unable to assert a claim against HP and other released parties in the future on the basis of the allegations in this settlement.

You May Remain in the Class and Object to any of the Terms of the Settlement. As fully described in the Class Notice, to do this you must file a written objection with the Court and mail a copy to the attorneys for the parties. To be valid, any objection must fully comply with the requirements set forth in the Class Notice and be received by July 6, 2005.

You May Exclude Yourself from the Settlement and not Participate in the Benefits of the Settlement and not be Bound. Your signed exclusion request, clearly stating your wish to be excluded from the Class and including the information listed in the Class Notice, must be mailed to the address specified in the Class Notice and must be received by July 6, 2005 or it will not be valid.

To get information including an explanation of who is affected by this settlement, a list of available benefits, and a complete explanation of all important deadlines you must read the Notice of Class Action Settlement, which may be accessed at the website below.

http://www.computersettlement.com/

DO NOT TELEPHONE THE COURT OR THE COURT CLERK

For more information, visit http://www.computersettlement.com/ or call 1-866-778-1148.

The Tracking Number and Passcode for submitting your Relief Form online are as follows:

1406314

V819R51

This Notice is being sent to potential Class Members as required by the Stipulation of Settlement. The Stipulation of Settlement requires the Settlement Administrator to provide legal notice to all email addresses provided by Plaintiffs_ counsel or HP pursuant to the Stipulation of Settlement. This is not a recurring email.

Recipients can unsubscribe by emailing your request to the address below:

unsubscribe@computersettlement.com

Poorman-Douglas Corp.

10300 SW Allen Blvd.

Beaverton, OR 97005

I have no idea to be honest with you.

[Leslie]

I am sure this falls under the heading of spam.

I have nothing to base that on, other than walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.... you know what I mean eh.

[capnq]

The obvious question is, have you ever bought an HP computer with XP installed? If you haven't, it's definitely spam.

I'm not sure e-mail is a valid way to distribute a legal notice. ISTM such things would be distributed by snail mail. OTOH, one occaisionally sees these things advertised in magazines.

If it's spam, someone went to a lot of effort to make it look legit.

[Atrocities]

It could be based off of HP's email lists, but more likely than not, it is just scam sight trying to get my personal info as it was also emailed to my new email account. One that I know HP does not have unless they have hacked into my computer, downloaded all of my hidden and encrpyted files, brain washed me, and had me abducted by aliens, and force fed ground up liver worms through a grapefuite.

COme to think of it, I did wake up with a really bad taste in my mouth this morning, kinda like dirty grapefruit.... I live alone.

[Atrocities]

Well it is not spam. I just got the offical letter today in the mail. Ouch. I guess I shall go to the web site and sign up for my free download.

[Suicide Junkie]

Why in hell would HP put the reinstall / "recovery" software on the harddrive?!?

That has got to be one of the lamest ideas EVER.
If the user needs to reinstall windows, there is a good probability that they've lost control of the machine to viruses and crapware.
Assuming they still have the ability to run programs at will, there is no guarantee that the recovery software hasn't been eaten by viruses.

Heck, I've encouraged common people to partition their harddrive and keep a backup of their clean install for easy restoration.
They say "Meh, if my disk dies, everything is gone, and its pointless!" Which is quite true.
The backup on harddrive only helps if windows keels over and dies peacefully. Or if you decide to put it out of its misery before it goes completely.

[Richard]

Compaq used to do this crap. The used to not only do that but also put most of the backup media on a second partition. Problem is it absolutely dropped your disk space in half.

I don't know if this is where HP is picking this up from, but I hope this is not a trend. I love HP laptops after years of using comcrap .