Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp was yesterday facing fresh allegations over its business practices after an Australian newspaper released 14,000 emails concerning one of the group’s security subsidiaries.
The emails, said to be from the hard drive of an ex-head of security at NDS, a former News Corp subsidiary specialising in set-top box technology, appear to show the company paid computer hackers to work with its “operational security” unit.
The Australian Financial Review claimed NDS’s activities in Australia in 1999 caused millions of dollars of damage to Mr Murdoch’s rivals in the country’s nascent pay-TV market. The business models of Austar, Optus and Foxtel were all damaged by a wave of high-tech piracy at that time.
The Australian newspaper, part of News Corp, said the emails had originated from the computer of Ray Adams, an ex-commander in the Metropolitan Police in London who served as head of operational security for NDS in Europe from 1996 to 2002. News Corp and NDS had no immediate comment.
Allegations of fierce competitive behaviour, which were not illegal under Australian law at the time, the Review said, came a day after the BBC’s Panorama made similar charges against NDS in the UK.
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