The home entertainment company was down 4.6% just prior to today’s closing bell — the first trading day since late Friday when Netflix revealed that its Q4 earnings weren’t as good as it said they were a few weeks ago. The company disclosed that it added a $9M expense to the quarter to settle a lawsuit alleging that it had violated customer privacy rights. With the additional outlay, Netflix says it generated earnings of 64 cents a share in the quarter — not the 73 cents it had reported. The number is still well ahead of the 53 cents that analysts expected. But it might not have resulted in the 22% stock price pop that Netflix saw the day after its filing. The settlement involved a complaint to a San Francisco court that Netflix had broken the law by keeping DVD rental and video streaming records of customers even after they cancelled the service, the AP says. The plaintiffs charged that Netflix had violated the federal Video Privacy Protection Act and California’s Customer Records Act and Unfair Competition Law. Despite the settlement, Netflix did not admit to any wrongdoing.

Netflix seems scummier by the day.
This is all very sad because this service really does work! The streaming through a good router and the Roku Box and other streaming units is damned good and will only get better. It’s a g.d. shame that the stewards of this service can’t get beyond their own greed and pull together with the industry to hone this service into something that will work for everyone, instead of picking it to death like vultures on a dead cow! Of course that would take smarts and foresight — something that’s obviously elusive in today’s entertainment industry…