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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Ex-Hulu Worker Says Company Ignored Risks

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (CN) - A former director of systems engineering at Hulu was wrongfully canned for warning his bosses that the popular movie and television Web site faced serious system failures and security risks, Duke Duong claims in Superior Court.

Duong says he warned CEO Jason Kilar and Chief Technology Officer Eric Feng that Hulu's content storage device was "inadequate due to drive failures, control failures and memory failures."

Hulu is an online video service that's co-owned by NBC Universal, News Corp. and Providence Equity Partners. It offers hit TV shows, movies and clips for free over the Internet.

Kilar allegedly agreed with Duong, but did nothing to fix it. Nor did Kilar take action on the disaster recovery plan that Duong said was needed to protect the company from hackers and security risks, the lawsuit claims.

Duong allegedly took it upon himself to rebuild Hulu's servers and manage its storage area network. "Plaintiff designed an effective security policy and disaster recovery plan for Hulu; Defendants refused to follow it," the lawsuit claims.

But Duong says Hulu fired him the day before he was scheduled to go on vacation for his wedding. The company allegedly told him it didn't have the money to implement his technology and ideas, but Duong claims it fired him "in order to avoid potential disclosure of Plaintiff's complaints to Hulu's clients and content partners."

He says the company owes him 190 hours of overtime.

His attorney is Michael Avila of Avila & Peros.

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