Seth Godin blogged something that I’ve long said. We live in a world where privacy is not a given. If you have a credit card, your life is an open book (one example among many). What Seth pointed out is that the lack of privacy isn’t what bothers us—it’s the ability of companies to take the information and draw conclusions about our lives and how to market to us. He gives a fascinating example. I won’t spoil the surprise; go visit.

Seth Godin: We Have No Privacy—Do You Really Care? is a post from: Principled Profit

Just when you thought, oh, the well is capped and Tony Hayward’s gone, maybe we can get back to normal—comes this little bit of news, courtesy of my colleague Chris MacDonald, a business ethics guy in Canada:

BP faked a photo of its Houston command center to make it look busier and more determined than was actually true.

Just how dumb are these guys?

Faked Photos: Is There No End to BP’s Stupidity? is a post from: Principled Profit

My friend Ken McArthur blogged about his internal struggle in not confronting racist remarks from his substitute barber. I gave him this advice:

It’s not too late. Go back and find him. Tell him, in a respectful, not angry way, “Ever since you cut my hair, I’ve been thinking about some of the things you said and how much I disagree with them. I’ve been beating myself up for not challenging your racism when you expressed it. So today, I’m going to stop beating myself up and tell you that I didn’t appreciate your put downs of those who look different from you, and I’ll not have you cut my hair again.” Then stand still and listen for dialogue. It may be quite vitriolic, but you may be able to go deeper. And you owe him that much.

You do this, not for his soul, but for yours. But there may be a side benefit of reaching his, too (maybe not right away).

Thanks for being brave enough to share this post. I look forward to the follow-up post about what happened when you went back. And how lucky you are that you have the opportunity to “undo the not doing.” I can remember a couple of incidents in my teens where I failed to interrupt racism or sexism on the street and never knew the identities, never had the chance to back and make it right. 40 years later, I still feel guilty.

Mind you, I’m no saint. I have successfully confronted oppressive behavior at times, left it unchallenged at times, and confronted the behavior without effecting any change at other times. Once I got an obscenity-laced tirade directed at me by name and religion, and that was scary (she later called up to apologize). But I’ll always be proud of the time I intervened with a child whose mother was about to lose it over his tantrum in the supermarket (I got the kid laughing by quacking at him)–and always be ashamed that I did nothing to intervene years earlier when a man was verbally abusing his girlfriend on the streets of New York.

A Chance to Confront Racism is a post from: Principled Profit

Computer guru Tim O’Reilly makes a half-hearted attempt to justify (or at least explain) Facebook’s latest privacy grab. But I find the San Francisco Chronicle’s Bill of Rights for social media users (which O’Reilly quotes at length) much more compelling:

Users have the right to:

1. Honesty: Tell the truth. Don’t make our information public against our will and call it “giving users more control.” Call things what they are.

2. Accountability: Keep your word. Honor the deals you make and the expectations they create. If a network asks users to log in, users expect that it’s private. Don’t get us to populate your network based on one expectation of privacy, and then change the rules once we’ve connected with 600 friends.

3. Control: Let us decide what to do with our data. Get our permission before you make any changes that make our information less private. We should not have data cross-transmitted to other services without our knowledge. We should always be asked to opt in before a change, rather than being told we have the right to opt out after a change is unilaterally imposed.

4. Transparency: We deserve to know what information is being disclosed and to whom. When there has been a glitch or a leak that involves our information, make sure we know about it.

5. Freedom of movement: If we want to leave your network, let us. If we want to take our data with us, let us do that, too. This will encourage competition through innovation and service, instead of hostage-taking. If we want to delete our data, let us. It’s our data.

6. Simple settings: If we want to change something, let us. Use intuitive, standard language. Put settings in logical places. Give us a “maximize privacy settings” button, a and a “delete my account” button.

7. Be treated as a community, not a data set: We join communities because we like them, not “like” them. Advertise to your community if you want. But don’t sell our data out from under us.

[This last sentence is O'Reilly's and not the Chronicle's] Everyone is right to hold Facebook’s feet to the fire as long as they fail to meet those guidelines.

Yes, the Chronicle Bill of Rights seems like common sense ethics to me. The problem is that I am not convinced Facebook’s latest privacy grab is even close to meeting these guidelines. Zuckerberg and others can continue to push the frontiers, but they should do it in ways that respect their members.

Personally, I go into the online world with the expectation that there is no privacy. And therefore the specific changes don’t bother me over-much. But as someone who writes about ethics, I have a problem with obtaining consent for one restricted set of behaviors and then wildly expanding it while requiring opt-out (and difficult opt-out at that) rather than opt-in. It’s nothing more than an electronic form of bait-and-switch–something I find unethical and in fact argue against in my latest book on business ethics, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet (co-authored with Jay Conrad Levinson).

Yet in the video included in the blog, O’Reilly makes a compelling case that Facebook’s privacy failures and the resultant pushback are essential to pushing the frontier, and that a lot of the innovations that seemed to threaten privacy were actually welcomed once people got used to them. O’Reilly says he’s more worried about Apple than Facebook. I, however, worry more about Google (which he also mentions in the video), which owns an extreme amount of personal data and has a very cavalier attitude toward copyrighted material

Tim O’Reilly & SF Chronicle on Facebook Privacy Changes is a post from: Principled Profit

I got a call tonight from a survey company asking me questions about my views on various candidates for Massachusetts Governor, and then about various energy alternatives, and then the obvious real purpose: questions about my views on the large-scale wood-burning biomass projects proposed around the state (including three locations fairly close to me: Russell, Greenfield, and even densely populated Springfield), and a proposed bill to count only solar, wind and hydro as Green projects, excluding nukes and biofuels.

I think this gets an “award” for the most biased survey I’ve ever taken. First, the questioner determined that I was strongly opposed to the biomass plants—which are very bad on carbon footprint, not only from the burning of wood but also the massive deforestation and the huge amount of truck traffic they will generate. Wood is, indeed, a renewable resource. But it sure isn’t a clean one!

Then he asked questions like

After these three biased questions that were clearly tilted toward counting me as an opponent of the bill, I stopped the guy and said I thought this was a survey, and not a blatant attempt to feed misinformation to me in an attempt to change my opinion. He said, “hey, I’m just reading the questions!” I said I understood that, but I didn’t appreciate being manipulated like this, and I ended the interview. My caller ID told me he had a 609 area code (New Jersey), incidentally.

I am totally sure this so-called survey will be used to trumpet the citizens of Massachusetts’ supposed stance in favor of biofuels and against the proposed law. While the law’s definitions could be sharpened, I actually feel that eliminating nuclear power and large-scale wood-burning biomass plants from being counted in the progress toward a Green economy is a GOOD thing. And I’ll be directing my friends who are active in the anti-biofuel campaigns to this blog, so they can see exactly what their opponents are up to—sleazy and easily discredited “surveys” like this.

Manipulative Biofuel-Industry “Survey” Guaranteed to Create Biased Results is a post from: Principled Profit

My friend Peter Shankman solicited comments from PR practitioners about Tiger Woods’ apology scheduled for later today, and the fact that reporters will not have access to him during the event; they’ll actually be in another building.

This drew lots of comments on Tiger but basically none other than Peter about how the media will play this. The media, by accepting the unacceptable terms of Tiger’s event-scripting, becomes complicit. If they said, “Hey, Tiger, it’s great that you want to apologize—and if you want us to cover the apology, you have to take questions, or else we’ll sit this one out,” you might have some real give-and-take. But the media has been awed by celebrities and cowed by the access question for too long (look at the unquestioning coverage of GW Bush and the run-up to the Iraq war as another example)—and they’ve forgotten that their mandate is not to unquestioningly amplify PR flacks’ scripts, but to dig deep and find the real story.

I’ve written two books on business ethics and blog frequently on media ethics, and I think that if the media is going to play the role of enabler of bad behavior, the media must share the blame that the real story doesn’t get told. It is the media that certified Tiger as someone worth paying attention to, rather than, say, someone who’s curing cancer or solving the energy crisis (like the amazing Amory Lovins).

Media is Complicit in Accepting Tiger Woods’ Scripted, Unquestioned Apology is a post from: Principled Profit

My online friend Christopher Elliott of the full TSA directive following the explosives incident last week, ordering pat-down searches of passengers as they board, and telling airline personnel to impose the equivalent of a lockdown the last hour of flight: no access to a host of conveniences from bathrooms to blankets to our own carry-on.

Next thing he knows, boom, he gets a subpoena!

Excuse me, but this is the kind of petty vindictiveness I’d expect from the George W. Bush administration. Some one rats out a stupid policy by telling the truth, and that someone gets squeezed.

I’m reminded of the old line from “We Don’t Get Fooled Again,” by The Who:

Meet the new boss/
Same as the old boss

On issue after issue, the Obama administration acts far too much like “the old boss.” On climate change, Guantanamo, Afghanistan…and now on abusing imaginary enemies. And even when there’s a victory for “change,” like the watered down corporate giveaway they’re calling “health reform,” it’s a hollow, compromised one.

If Obama wants a second term, he darn well better start causing some positive change–and turning his back on both the small-minded get-even tactics and the egregious radical-right extremist policies of his slimy and self-righteous criminal predecessor.

Where is the change we voted for?

TSA Subpoenaed My Friend For Telling the Truth is a post from: Principled Profit

While visiting Minneapolis, I took in the opening day of the new Ben Franklin exhibit at the Minnesota History Center in downtown Saint Paul. I’ve long ben a Franklin fan. To me, his far-reaching curiosity, big-picture viewpoint, multiple interests, creativity, willingness to question authority and even make fun of it, media and persuasion skills, dedication to the public good, and rise from poverty to a comfortable (even hedonistic) lifestyle are all traits that today’s entrepreneurs can learn from.

No one can question that he made many important contributions in science (adding vastly to our knowledge of electricity, inventing a safer and more fuel-efficient wood stove), diplomacy/statesmanship (bringing France in as a powerful and game-changing ally against the British during the Revolution, oldest member of the Constitutional Convention), literature and communication (best-selling author/journalist/printer/publisher who was successful enough to retire from printing at 42, and propagandist for causes and philosophies he believed in), entrepreneurship (training and funding printers for a multistate network to print and distribute his works, anticipating the Internet by about 200 years and the modern franchise system by at least a century), as well as civic good (co-founding a public library, public hospital, fire department, fire insurance company, postal system, philosophical society).

But what struck me were some of the contradictions—there are many others, but these two in particular need a second look:
Slavery
Franklin became convinced late in life that slavery was evil, and served as president of an anti-slavery society. Yet he not only owned slaves for over 40 years, but often published ads from slave-hunters in his periodicals, and refused to put his name on much of his earliest anti-slavery writing.

Integrity
Franklin is well-known for his moralizing, his aphorisms, and his commitment to honesty and integrity. Yet he broke his apprenticeship to his brother, ran away to Philadelphia before it was completed, and started as a printer without the papers necessary to show he qualified as a journeyman.

While none of us are perfect, it does seem that these areas of Franklin’s life, among others, need careful examination, with more detail than was provided by this traveling exhibit (which seemed to be aimed largely at children).

Ben Franklin: Genius and Contradictions is a post from: Principled Profit

Guest post by Elizabeth Johnson

I was very proud of the notebook computer I had purchased a year ago; in my mind, I felt I had secured a good deal and that it was value for money. The only flaw (if you could call it that) was that it came with the Norton Antivirus security solution. Now I know that there are many people who prefer Norton as their antivirus solution, but it is just too complicated and bloated for my liking. I feel that it slows down my system and enters every nook and corner and leaves bits of it behind even after you’ve uninstalled it.

But hey, no harm done – it was a free subscription for a year (included in the price of the notebook), so I could enjoy the benefits for 12 months after which I was free to choose my own security package. Or so I thought, but Norton decided otherwise. Once I had it uninstalled and a new antivirus solution installed in its place, I found that I could no longer use Firefox to browse the web. I didn’t think too much of it – maybe there was some bug that Mozilla hadn’t yet addressed. So I switched over to Internet Explorer. But in a few days, IE too began giving me problems.

My system would read the network, it could even connect to Yahoo Messenger, but it just would not open any page in Firefox, IE or any other browser. I was at my wits’ end, until a friend who is also a software expert tried reinstalling Norton again. And voila, what do you know, the pages open as if by magic. So I was forced to renew my Norton license, or should I say my computer was held to ransom by Norton?

No, I don’t like the way things are, but I have to swallow my anger and lump it, because I cannot afford to buy a new OS or a new laptop just because my antivirus provider follows completely unethical business practices. This is typically what is known as anti-competitive behavior – you force your product onto the customer who literally has no choice in deciding for themselves. Companies have been criticized for engaging customers in opt-out marketing tactics where they are signed up for some service or product and must opt out of it explicitly if they do not want it. Very often, the customer does not know of this service until the hefty bill arrives at the end of the month.

But this behavior beats even opt-out strategies, because it has forced me to stay with Norton, something I find an extremely unpleasant experience. I know that I could get someone who is skilled in cleaning the registry to rid my system of these files, but with time being a major constraint, I decided to just let it go, but not without a letter to their customer service department complaining of their anti-competitive strategy. Is this the only way Norton can hold on to its customers?

This guest article was written by Elizabeth Johnson, who regularly writes on the topic of construction management degrees . She welcomes your comments and questions at her email address: elizabeth.johnson1 (at) rediffmail.com

The Unethical Nature of Anti-Competitive Behavior is a post from: Principled Profit

If you search on Google for the word Google plus the exact phrase “Don’t Be Evil”, you get 366,000 hits. The company’s motto has been used at least since 2001, according to Wikipedia.

As someone who has been writing and speaking about business ethics for seven years, I applaud this motto. But I question its authenticity as it applies to some of Google’s actions. In other words, I see Google occasionally violating the motto with at least three sets of policies that–intentionally or not–certainly do evil.

On its corporate information page, Google defines what it means by “don’t be evil”:

* We don’t allow ads to be displayed on our results pages unless they are relevant where they are shown. And we firmly believe that ads can provide useful information if, and only if, they are relevant to what you wish to find – so it’s possible that certain searches won’t lead to any ads at all.
* We believe that advertising can be effective without being flashy. We don’t accept pop-up advertising, which interferes with your ability to see the content you’ve requested. We’ve found that text ads that are relevant to the person reading them draw much higher clickthrough rates than ads appearing randomly. Any advertiser, whether small or large, can take advantage of this highly targeted medium.
* Advertising on Google is always clearly identified as a “Sponsored Link,” so it does not compromise the integrity of our search results. We never manipulate rankings to put our partners higher in our search results and no one can buy better PageRank. Our users trust our objectivity and no short-term gain could ever justify breaching that trust.

These are good, as far as they go. And Google has done a whole lot of other things right—starting with creating a fabulous user experience. Anyone who remembers the awful interfaces, slow and inaccurate search results, and general clumsiness of pre-Google search tools is grateful for Google’s existence. I got on the Internet in 1994, and I certainly count myself among those who appreciate what Google did for search. The AdWords/AdSense program is another example of reinventing the paradigm and doing it a good bit better, and some of the newer modules also make things easier for anyone doing research. Google’s real mission seems to be to make the world’s body of knowledge accessible on line, in seconds. In many ways, that’s a worthy goal. But on ethics grounds, Google has had some real shortcomings.

Sidewiki, as I understand it, allows users who have the Google Toolbar installed to comment, unmoderated, in an area that appears on the left side of the webpage–but those comments are only visible to others who have the Toolbar installed! Among the many evils this can lead to: spamming, blocking site owners’ sources of revenue (or even replacing them with links that benefit those commenting), loss of control over one’s own website, black hat search technique, slander of site owners or contributors, unethical business practices such as deceptive advertising, and even something as simple as wrecking the aesthetic and content integrity of a carefully designed website…all in a hijacked section of the page that may not even be visible to the site owner, if he/she doesn’t happen to install the toolbar.

I was alerted to the Sidewiki problem through two recent blogs by Paul Myers on Talkbiz. The first discusses the software and its vast potential for misuse. And the second offers site owners some possible protection, as well as a suggestion to Google about how to enable the useful parts of the feature without compromising site integrity or forcing site owners to agree to onerous privacy terms:

When someone wishes to read comments or discussion about a site they’re visiting, enable them to open a separate browser tab, program window or other display option that shows previous comments and allows them to add their own.

This is not a technically difficult change to the program, certainly. It is consistent with the goal of enabling broader visitor interaction in a time- and context-appropriate fashion.

And it respects the rights of site owners.

Google can’t hep being aware of these controversies. Sop how can it claim to abide by “don’t be evil”?

Sidewiki Makes Me Question Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” Mantra is a post from: Principled Profit