5 Companies That Had A Rough Week

The Week Ending June 8

Topping this week's roundup of those having a rough week is Facebook, which faces yet another embarrassing customer privacy controversy, this time over a bug that switched the settings for some 14 million users from "private" to "public."

Also making the list this week are HP employees, more of whom now face layoffs under a reorganization initiative; Google, which lost out to Microsoft in bidding for GitHub; NetApp's CTO, who apparently left the company after a corporate restructuring made his job unnecessary; and the MyHeritage genealogy website, which was the apparent victim of a security breach.

Not everyone in the IT industry was having a rough go of it this week. For a rundown of companies that made smart decisions, executed savvy strategic moves – or just had good luck – check out this week's Five Companies That Came To Win roundup.

Facebook Bug Switches Privacy Settings For Up To 14 Million Users

Facebook, which has already been under fire for how it protects user data, took another hit this week when a bug switched the privacy sharing settings for as many as 14 million users to "public."

The bug affected the settings between May 18 and 22, apparently while Facebook was testing a new feature, according to a CNN Tech story. Once the bug was discovered, the settings for all posts shared during that period were reset to "private."

A Bloomberg story said the bug affected privacy settings for as many as 10 days.

Facebook executives apologized for the error and the company has begun informing users who were impacted by the incident.

HP Discloses Up To 1,000 Additional Job Cuts

It was a tough week for HP Inc. workers who learned this week that the company has increased by 500 to 1,000 positions the number of job cuts it plans as part of its restructuring plan.

In October 2016 the company disclosed a plan to cut its workforce by 4,000 positions by the end of fiscal 2019. But in a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said it now expects "approximately 4,500 to 5,000 employees to exit by the end of fiscal year 2019," which runs through Oct. 31, 2019.

The restructuring plan is aimed at helping HP save money and focus on innovation.

Google Misses Out In Bidding For GitHub

While Microsoft makes this week's "5 That Came To Win" list for its $7.5 billion deal to buy GitHub, Google was reportedly a loser in bidding for the source code repository and development collaboration platform.

Google had been in discussions with GitHub about an acquisition at the same time Microsoft was negotiating an acquisition.

Ultimately Microsoft won the deal by agreeing to pay a 25-times multiple on GitHub's $300 million annual revenue.

NetApp CTO Bergman Departs In Wake Of Reorganization

It's got to be tough when you are told that your role no longer is needed. But that's the situation NetApp chief technology officer Mark Bergman apparently found himself in, leading to his resignation this week.

NetApp said Bergman "decided to pursue interests outside of NetApp."

NetApp has recently reorganized into three separate businesses and realigned its engineering resources behind them. As a result, a NetApp spokesperson said, the company does not plan to fill the CTO role.

Hack Of DNA Testing Site MyHeritage Exposes Consumer Data

MyHeritage, a consumer DNA testing and genealogy website, said this week that email addresses and passwords for more than 92 million user accounts were compromised in an apparent hacking incident, according to a Bloomberg report.

MyHeritage said a company security officer received a message from a researcher who discovered a file on a private server outside of the company that contained email addresses and encrypted passwords for 92,283,889 MyHeritage users, the story said.

The file contained the information for users who signed up for the service up to October 26, 2017, according to USA Today.

MyHeritage said there was no evidence the data had been used by the perpetrators.