Ethical business dilemmas – the WTO column

(later also at Chinabiz)
One of the problems in discussing ethical dilemmas for companies is that in most cases they try to avoid making it into a public discussion. In those cases the people who are hired to speak on behalf of the companies involved, they most often lose the abilities that have brought them their job in the first place: they stop talking.
While business dilemmas occur everywhere, it is not surprising that over the past few years internet companies entering China have been hit by a fair share of publicity about how they would behave in a country where free speech and free media are not part of its cultural heritage. Further, anything related to the internet is almost automatically part of the public sphere. So, when Google censors its Chinese news aggregator to align with the Chinese regulations, they are accused of complying with the murky Chinese internet laws for its own purpose of making money on the Chinese market. The fact that they tried to weasel out of the issue by saying Chinese internet users could not get access to banned website anyway, did not make their position much better. Yahoo has been in a similar position. Both companies avoided a public confrontation with their audiences, who cried foul about the way those companies complied with the Chinese censorship.

Microsoft got itself this week in a similar position. China is – again – registering websites and weblogs. The registration has a limited scope. Lager hosting services, like the successful ‘Spaces’ by Microsoft, have to register, but then the thousands of weblogs hosted at those services do not have to. That comes at a price and Microsoft was accused of banning words to avoid problems with the internet censor in China.
What then happened was new for me, and it might be a sign of changing times. Microsoft has hired a weblogger, a staff member that keeps his online diary on developments in the company that operates rather different from a traditional PR-operation. First, Scobleizer, as he is called, writes under his own name without officially representing the company. Sometime, he even goes aggressively against the corporate policies set out by his CEO. Discussions that would have remained internally in many other larger corporations are taken to the public domain. Because Scobleizer is fast, very well informed and allows others to give their take on the issue, the exchanges quickly become fascinating.
So, in this case on censorship in China Scobleizer publicly sided with this company. When you work or want to work in a country you have to stick to their rules and regulations, even if you do not like it, Scobleizer wrote to the disgust of those representing the politically correctness on the internet.
I only partly agree with him. Even though both in part of the US and China the death penalty is legally accepted, I would still resist being part in selling equipment for their death chambers. There is just a limit to how far I would comply with what might be legal in any country. I’m not sure whether complying with the internet censorship would belong in that category, but many in the rest of the world will certainly think so.
The fact that there is a discussion going on about this business dilemma is interesting enough. Obvious, many companies have decided that their business, and sometimes even their future, lies in China. While both individuals and companies might have different ways of drawing a line, for everybody there will be a bottom line. Bringing the discussion into the open is a plus and Microsoft should be applauded for doing it. In that way, they are a sign that things are changing, yet again, for all players involved in global business.

Fons Tuinstra