Ethical
Dilemma #5:
Oracle, Microsoft, and the ethics of “dumpster diving.”
The Oracle Corporation recently admitted to hiring a private
investigation firm for the purpose of uncovering financial connections between
its arch-rival Microsoft and allegedly independent pro-Microsoft advocacy groups.
Investigative Group International, a Washington, D.C. based detective agency,
investigated connections between Microsoft and such organizations as the Independent
Institute and the National Taxpayers Union. IGI even attempted to buy the trash
of the Association for Competitive Technology. Lawrence Ellison, Oracle's CEO,
claimed that such spying was not only legal, but justified by Microsoft's own
business practices; he defended Oracle’s action as a “public service.”
Not surprisingly, Oracle’s actions have been challenged on a couple of fronts.
First, as Microsoft pointed out, Oracle has financed organizations that are critical
of Microsoft, groups such as ProComp, the Progress and Freedom Foundation, the
Software and Information Industry Association and the Computer and Communications
Industry Association. Ellison’s appeal to Microsoft’s own practices also sounds
suspiciously like “two wrongs make a right.”
More importantly, some regard “dumpster diving” as a violation of privacy. Since
privacy is at the forefront when it comes to Internet issues and since Oracle
is in the Internet software business, some find it especially troubling that Ellison
has no ethical reservations about the company’s behavior.
What ethical guidelines should prevail in ever-changing, technological fields?
Are Oracle’s actions examples of poor ethics and hypocrisy, or are they defensible
business practices? A group of students in an "Ethics in Business and Technology"
course in Ohio began an e-mail campaign to press for a public admission of poor
ethics by Oracle and a promise to be more ethical in the future. Do you agree?
What do you think?
(case suggested by Will Stevens)
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