The current HP scandal is the consequence of what is known as "pretexting".
Over at the washingtonpost.com there is an article that covers the shady procedure of "pretexting" to obtain information about a person. Although you may like myself, be astonished and unaware that executives of the same company engaged in spying upon each other like this, it seems it is not uncommon !
pretext : a purpose or motive alleged or an appearance assumed in order to cloak the real intention or state of affairs
Merriam Webster
Have you ever wondered, when you get inundated with questions by some random telemarketer, "How many people live in your apartment ?", "Do you own the apartment ?", "Do you all work full-time ?" and so on... whether there is some hidden agenda ? Or worse, for the pure paranoid, whether they are planning to figure out when you're not at home ?!