Months before Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was set to launch Activision’s chief legal officer (now chief public policy officer) George Rose asked ex-IT manager Thomas Fenady to try and gain access to West’s and Zampella’s work email accounts, computers and phones in an attempt to uncover and questionable activities in an operation known internally as “Project Icebreaker.”
This is according to legal documents that Giant Bomb obtained before the lawsuit between around 40 former Infinity Ward employees and Activision, which claim that “Project Icebreaker” was directly authorized by Bobby Kotick, Activision’s CEO.
Rose allegedly told Fenady “don’t get caught doing it,” and told him that “Bobby will take care of you. …Don’t worry about repercussions.”
Rose denied specifically asking Fenady to “dig up dirt” on West and Zampella during his deposition, but did admit to the existence of Project Icebreaker. He said they simply tried to gain access to West’s and Zampella’s email accounts, but were unsuccessful. Activision also allegedly approached Microsoft and security specialists InGuardians in an attempt to gain access to the email accounts. Both companies refused on legal grounds.
Farady also stated that there were discussions about gaining private access to Infinity Ward’s studio space in order to image teh contents of West’s and Zampella’s computers during a fake fumigation or mock fire drill. He said, “I only know it was discussed. I don’t think it was acted upon.”
(Via CVG)
