Company Ethics

Various recent news articles surrounding the integration of consumer-generated content

on company websites has brought up many issues of ethics, privacy, and deceit. More and more

companies are looking toward blogs, social networking, and private user information to learn

more about what their consumers are interested in, and to persuade them into purchasing the

company’s products or becoming more invested in their brand.

With the increasing popularity of social networking and websites featuring user-generated

content, many companies have sought unethical ways to reach out to their consumers. For

example, Edelman PR recently admitted to creating Wal-Mart’s blog, “Working Families for

Wal-Mart.” A recent blog entry, titled “Wal-Marting across America,” featured a fictitious family

traveling the United States in their RV and sleeping in Wal-Mart parking lots. The lesson:

corporate blogs need to be open and honest with consumers.

Equally unethical was Ruckus’ creation of “Brody Ruckus.” This meat puppet, or

fictitious character that passes for a human online, was given a Facebook profile and was the star

in a self-titled Facebook group urging users to join his group so that his girlfriend would

participate in a three-some with him if his group reached a certain number of members.

Facebook users failed to realize that Brody Ruckus was made up and that Ruckus was able to

gather the email information of the 300,000 people that joined the group. This was clearly a form

of deception on Ruckus’ part because they lied just to create buzz for their company. It is also

common for company interns to act as “fans” in online chat rooms to create buzz for their

company, another less subtle, yet deceitful form of marketing.

Sony recently had a “flog,” or a fake blog titled alliwantforxmasisapsp.com, created by a

viral marketing firm to advertise their PSP during the holiday season.
 At these times of crisis, many companies addressed the public in an inappropriate

manner. Although the CEO of Edelman apologized for creating the “Working Families for Wal-

Mart” blog and AOL apologized for accidentally releasing their user search data to the research

community, many other companies are not as quick to admit their flaws. Ruckus did not publicly

apologize for creating Brody Ruckus and using 300,000 email addresses, nor did Sony actually

apologize for creating their “flog” about their PSP (Sony did at least acknowledge the issue).

Companies such as MySpace and Xanga also did not actually apologize to consumers for

violating privacy issues by giving away user information. Both agreed to increase “safeguards,”

which they feel will make their websites safer when handling users’ private information.

Another issue company websites are coming across is privacy, which is seen as the key to

the safety of their users. Whether AOL releases user data or MySpace gives away data on their

teen users, more companies are faced with problems that they had not anticipated regarding

social networking. Besides giving away personal information on users, companies such as

Xanga, Hershey Foods, and Mrs. Field’s Cookies were caught violating children’s privacy issues.

The Federal Trade Commission fined these companies for violating the Children’s Online

Privacy Protection Act by asking children for personal information without prior consent of their

parents. Since children and teenagers make so much personal information available to others

through the internet, issues have gone beyond privacy to include sexual predators. Companies

such as Hershey, Mrs. Field’s, and Xanga have become so involved in collecting user data that

they are willing to put young children at risk by giving away too much information for their own

benefit.

Overall, companies need to understand that they need to remember what it ethical before

creating fake blogs, or allowing unqualified users to become members of their website. The need
to see that some of the steps they take to create additional buzz are not worth the bad publicity or

large fine they will receive in return.