Content Sabotage, Or Exercises in Poor Business Ethics
A friend of mine was relating the job description of a friend of his. I won’t name names to protect the job of the friend-of-a-friend, but it involved a certain large technology company hiring contractors to post offensive messages on the forums of a certain other large technology company. Ostensibly, the purpose is to time how long it takes the company to take down these offending messages, but it sparked a discussion over lunch about whether it’s ethical and/or legal to consciously post offensive material on a competitor’s forums. I was appalled that this could actually be happening, even if it’s for the stated purpose of gathering competitive intelligence about the response times of the other company. Would make for a perfect case study in a Business Ethics class — mostly exploring whether the worker asked to do these things should be outing her bosses bosses and where competitive “intelligence” crosses the line (not to mention my personal doubts that just gathering intelligence is what this is really about, since it clearly diminishes the value of the competitors forums to have offensive messages showing up).
I’d say it is as legal as any spam, and about as ethical. If word ever got out, the company who did it would really have a giant black mark against it.
I might have a bit more sympathy oddly enough if the companies were spam filter companies.
Comment by Gary — March 21, 2008 @ 6:49 pm
Yeah, no — not spam companies. These are big brand-name companies, both of them.
Comment by Nathan Dintenfass — March 21, 2008 @ 7:03 pm
must … fight … temptation to post offensive message …
Comment by phayes — April 4, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
If it was anti-competitor criticism that was based on legitimate claims then I’d be all for it.
For example, criticizing a company like Apple for their arguably blatantly-dishonest marketing techniques or criticizing the Red Lobster restaurant because their water tastes like hairspray and vinegar.
But if it was just randomly obscene or vulgar commenting then I think that’s a no-no. I’d rat that company out to their competitor straightway.
Comment by David McGuigan — May 2, 2008 @ 3:38 am