Ethics as defined by Google is, “moral principles that govern a person’s behavior or the conducting of an activity”. This is a highly subjective topic, because of its bases on individuals’ philosophical beliefs and values. What one person may think ethically correct another may see as wrong, but what is interesting is that morality can be bent and swayed by influencing factors. Among various motivating variables, such as family or religion, regional culture has a strong manipulation of morale. An article by Renaud Anjoran from qualityinspection.org wrote that in his experience its common in Chinese society to openly behave unethically (in the eyes of Western business ethics). Since it is the social norm in China what place does a westerner have, to say it is unethical to try to cheat customers on a trust based obligation. These practices are socially accepted therefore ethical okay to the Chinese, the article goes on to say that many foreigners lose their western integrity for economic gain. Here is one example of how environmental factors have an important influence over an individual’s moral compass.
Security and trust are increasingly big area’s where ethics takes a back seat to business. There is no regulation or penalty for companies to keep their systems up to date; granted there is no system that is purely “safe”, but consumers trust these businesses to keep their information confidential. Unfortunately, the reality is that profit out ways the moral compass and companies choose short cuts which increases risk for the consumer. Take for example the Google StreetView feature, photographs were not screened and violated the privacy of people in these pictures. Sensitive and private moments were archived on the web with no permission asked. It was later discovered that other information about Wi-fi networks, email, and other records were being recorded by the Google StreetView crew. Is it ethically right for Google to be archiving all this data without permission? From the consumers stand point probably not, but to Google it may well be.
Personally, I feel that the Street View feature violated general moral imperative 1.2 and 1.7 in the ACM code of ethics which is titled ‘Avoid harm to others’ and ‘Respect the privacy of others’. I as a heavily dependent user of a lot of Google’s services hope that they handle my information with care. The truth of the matter is that ethics in big corporations can at times reach a grey area, because of the lack of regulation and laws. I believe that it will be my generation to solve some of these ethical dilemmas in respecting others’ privacy and avoid harming others.
Anjoran, Renaud, et al. “Chinese vs. Western business: different ethical standards?” QualityInspection.org, 27 Jan. 2009, qualityinspection.org/chinese-vs-western-business-different-ethical-standards/.