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Amnesty Calls Shenannigans on MS, Sun, Cisco

Posted by chrisd on from the filtering-is-bad-mkay dept.

ZurichPrague writes "Amnesty International is claiming Microsoft, Sun, Nortel and Cisco, among others, have broken the law by selling filtering technology to China, helping that country implement its censorship. Is Amnesty right? Making the technology is fine, but if we know that it could be used for ill, aren't we bound to not sell to some countries and companies? C/Net has the story here."

2 of 418 comments (clear)

  1. Moral issue, but is there a legal one here? by fetta · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There is definitely a moral issue here - should companies help suppress freedom in other countries?

    But is there really a legal issue here? I'm not so sure.

    --
    ** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
  2. Re:Of course not. by 1u3hr · · Score: 5, Interesting
    corporations exist for one reason: to make money. For good or for ill, there are no moral obligations placed on them

    You've just stated there is no legal obligation. Probably true. Amnesty's modus operandi is basically to ask governments and corporations to consider the morality of what they do. Further, it can make it a business issue for the company if it doesn't care by making it lose sales elsewhere. Companies, like Apple, were pressured by boycotts to stop selling services to the murderous Burmese junta by that means.