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Shareholders Pressure Internet Companies on Rights
whamett writes "A group of investment firms is putting their shareholder weight behind asking high-tech companies that deal with repressive regimes to pay more attention to rights violations. Meanwhile, two of the firms have drafted a separate resolution for Cisco shareholders that's up for vote on Tuesday. All this comes not long after Yahoo's involvement in the jailing of a Chinese journalist left a bad taste in everyone's mouth." This isn't the first time that investment firms have stepped up to the plate on human rights violations.
The only way most firms will push to respect human rights is if we make serious domestic penalties for companies that break human rights laws overseas or use companies that break codes.
Umm, did you read the article? It's the investors of these companies (in this case) that are pushing for protection of human rights. However, their intetions aren't exactly altruistic.
FTA:
"On the broadest possible level, democracy provides the best possible environment for investment," Kanzer said.
and
Wolfe maintains that filtering and stifling Internet traffic runs against a good Internet business model.
"Internet traffic creates demand for IT infrastructure networks. So, any activity that serves to quell Internet traffic threatens the long-term viability and growth opportunities of IT infrastructure and networking companies."
Bradley Holt
The article talks about Cisco, Yahoo & Google but the summary only mentions Cisco & Yahoo.
Given that "CNN's chief news executive Eason Jordan [admitted] that for the past decade the network [systematically] covered up stories of Iraqi atrocities" prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in order to maintain access to Saddam's government, it would seem that CNN and TimeWarner would be prime candidates for sanctions/and or boycotts.
Yeah, well they covered up the fact that there were no nuclear weapons in Iraq either, so I guess it all balances out.
May the Maths Be with you!
That isn't the case at all. The issue in that case was that H. Ford owned a disproportionate number of shares, and the board was obligated to carry out Ford's interests. Since the majority of the minority shareholders wanted to make money and to earn dividends, not employ the poor, they took Ford Corp to court. Keep in mind that a corporation is really not answerable to anyone but the shareholders, and they are represented by the board (which to me at least is why the Chairman of the Board and CEO MUST be separate positions). Since the majority of shareholders was actually in favor of those favoring dividends, the court determined that Ford was to comply with their demands. Basically, they said that the board represents them, and therefore is legally bound to represent all shareholders' interests. This has nothing to do with profit maximisation or minimisation. The government couldn't give a hoot about the profits of those companies (or at least shouldn't ::cough cough::Haliburton::cough cough::). If the government forced companies to maximize profit, then progress would come to a screeching halt.