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Doubts On Yahoo's Human Rights Code of Conduct
Ian Lamont writes "The US Senate has been pushing American technology companies to work with rights groups to develop a human rights code of conduct, which would help to guide their overseas activities. Yahoo now claims that it has established the 'core components' of a global code of conduct, and a more complete version will be ready this fall. However, the Industry Standard notes that there's a fundamental flaw with such efforts: US law is not world law. Following the local laws is a requirement of doing business in any country, and conflicts between corporate ethics and the law of the land in which these corporations do business are inevitable. The US Senate's push for such a code was prompted by a number of incidents, including Yahoo's complicity in the arrest of Chinese dissidents and a Chinese journalist."
I love the smelling of burning mod points!
Middle Kingdrom syndrome is the tendency to believe that "our" culture is the best, and that "our" laws, customs, and culture should supercede all other laws, customs, and culture.
China is occasionally accused of Middle Kingdom syndrome by some Americans. Seems that the pot is still calling the kettle nasty names.
If you haven't been down-modded lately, you aren't trying.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
Waterboarding has been okay'd!
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
Anyone that contributes to the subjugation of mankind is guilty of a crime against humanity and nature itself. If Terry Semel would cause someone to be tortured as part of his business, there is no excuse. Profiteers of human suffering are the lowest of the low. Pigs like these and the telecom execs should be dealt with by the same measure they have dealt with others.
This is certainly true. However, the silver lining here is that the law the Senate may want to push can provide a way for companies like Yahoo to not comply with a government like China. Yahoo can point the finger back at U.S law and claim that their hands are tied. China would then have to determine what is in it's best interests and whether or not to expel Yahoo.
Furthermore, if a company really did have a code of ethics and morality that it openly proclaimed it was following, why it would compromise to make a buck in a country that did not share their values? You would think there would be limits. I am certain that sounds incredibly cynical, yet there is mountains of evidence in every corner of business that supports this observation.
It is this reality that leads many to conclude there are no limits, no ethics, no principles in business. There is only the law, what influence a company can have on the laws that constrain it, what influence a company can have on laws that help it, and what a company can get away with in terms of net liability when violating the law.
I was never surprised by what Yahoo did in China. "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". Well in China, Yahoo has to operate according to Chinese laws and cultural values. If the U.S Senators are really that upset about it then pass a law and Yahoo will have no choice. It is a bit hypocritical though considering that there are many countries in the world abhor how corporations in the US get to treat their customers.
In the end, I suspect this will mostly be hot air. As long as their are profits to be made in China, US companies will be there regardless of how they have to "bend" their values to operate.
Goodbye western society, it was nice to have you around. Seriously, we're trying to force some corporation to have an ethical code of conduct while our own government officials take bribes, shoplift, and sleep around? I mean, really?
Check out the sentiments we'll be facing at the feet of our enemes soon. We've got angry Russians tearing through one of our minion-states, like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dy1b34Ehdg
You know what he's saying? He's saying "we're living like bums, they're living like kings, all this nice stuff, and look what happened to them"
That's just a shadow of things to come. Our government is going to be a weak joke compared to anybody with a moderately angry army and a united set of principles. In fact you can say it already happened, with 9/11, etc.
Sigh. (Sorry for the rant)
don't do business at all. And before you say "who decides what's ethical" I'd say my fellow countrymen get to decide what's ethical for those within our country as well as what's ethical for Australian corporations. I'd say Americans should have the same right. That way they can hold Yahoo to a higher standard then they would hold some random Chinese company.
The tendency to believe that all aspects of all cultures are equally "valid".
Yeah, Acronymising -> Making Acronyms out of the /. titles.
DoYHRCoC -- Or even better: Yahoo's Human Rights CoC
signature is pants
since when has the fact that U.S. law != world law every stopped that collection of idiots in Congress from ever trying to pass any legislation that is designed to affect more then the U.S.?
They're not doing it for the belief in human rights, they're doing it for the good press.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Bullshit. It's about "morality", "codes of conduct". Not "law". Obviously companies have to follow the laws of the land or suffer penalties. Similar laws exist to prevent American companies using bribery overseas regardless of the laws in the foreign country. If it's an American company doing business overseas, they have to work with two regimes. If they can't, too bad. Stay at home.
Everything is not just about the bottom line. If a company's actions can send a person to jail, if the only calculation they make is "Is it good for business?", well, they're assholes and they can deal with the bad karma and hopefully a massive PR disaster.
I hate these corporate apologists who say they have an "obligation to maximise profits regardless of morality". No, you don't. What you mean is you have a desire to get a bigger bonus. Obligations, even in business, go beyond that, if you're a human being.
"That's like the AC calling the CowboyNeal fat."
Try to get some type of standard with the United Nation for companies that operate in different nations. However, this would be even harder to get passed or make into law given the inability to reach compromises between various different people and beliefs. In case such a thing would pass, it would be more then hot air or a show to make politician looks good. Though, you still have to decide how to enforce such a policy if it would be more then hot air.
However now days, having it look good in the books allows people to talk about how great a job they are doing regardless of any real useful law and the peace of mind that things are right with the world. Itâ(TM)s better to live in the fantasy world then the real world.
Here's your real test America!
Will you uphold your ideals if it means losing money? What do you REALLY value?
Actions speak louder than words.
Not in all countries anyway, especially smaller ones.
Depending on the country, there may be other options
1. Bribe police to not enforce law.
2. Bribe government to change law.
3. Help overthrow government. See origin of term "banana republic".
Depending on the situation, some or all of these options may be morally better than following the local laws.
She later quotes a couple of totally weird "Gmail notifications" (written in broken english), purportedly coming from "The Gmail team".
It'd be interesting to see the full email headers, but there seems to be increasing evidence that despite Google has publically resisted the Chinese Communist Party's demands of cooperation (unlike Microsoft and Yahoo who both collaborated) the CCP regime is indeed able to intercept Gmail traffic.
Under CCP's rule, all personal encryption to which the CCP doesn't have keys has been declared illegal. This presumably includes the easily available HTTPS encryption used in browsers and which Google also uses for Gmail.
Whether the CCP has struck a deal with Google (or someone inside Google), they can read HTTPS traffic or it is simply a case of CCP keyloggers in all internet cafes, the issue should be thoroughly studied and the public be warned accordingly, if necessary. Especially when in China, and in particular in Tibet, the most innocuous messages can easily result in imprisonment, serious bodily harm or even death.
Some people will still be willing to take that risk in order get information out of China or Tibet, but all email users there should be prominently warned if there is any suspicion that the service may be compromised.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
There is such a thing as objective morality; and whether China likes it or not, the USA's law is much more moral than theirs. Maoism corrupted China's conscience and only foreign pressure can bring them to cleaning themselves up. The Chinese probably can't do it themselves. It's politically incorrect in China to question the government's human rights record.
Yahoo can point the finger back at U.S law and claim that their hands are tied.
No they cannot. You can't excuse breaking the law in one country because you'll break the law in another. It is Yahoo who have to decide which penalty they wish to accept. This is not just true in China but in Canada and Europe where we have far more stringent privacy laws than the US and companies may well find themselves breaking our laws when the US government demands they hand over private data.
China has moved from being communist to fascist in the sense that they allow capitalism by under one party rule. Basically, the merger of state and business. We Americans are always fussing about it because we have free speech, etc (at least for the most part), but I say if the Chinese citizens want what they are seeing, then they can have it. It will only be their loss in the end. Civilizations go through cycles. From lots of personal freedom to none, then destruction and rebirth. The seeds of destruction is usually planted from inside. The closer they get to fascism, the closer they get to destruction. Look at history if you doubt. The people simply cannot be dominated.
IBM seems to have had a problem determining what was legal and what is moral. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust
We know the US is perfect. Its citizens have no complaints about the government and how the country is run. If something is perfect then you should imitate it!
Yes, it is. All countries subscribe to the same drivers as we now have. We have taught them well.
Greed and Hate.
If we're going to take over from the British Empire as World Police, what a shame we haven't bought into the British concepts of Honor and Fair Play as well. Perhaps we should send all our future leaders to be educated in British bording schools...?
Lowest Common Denominator:
Corps AREN'T Human Beings!
Corporations are artificial "persons" that exist to convert resources into Temporary Monetary Gratification.
THAT is their "morality": it is their LAW.
Their "outsourcing" of entire sections of national economies, is simply the expression of this.
How can they have any "loyalty" to anyone, if they aren't real someones?
Lowest Common Denominator means that if there's a totalitarian regime somewhere that gratifies a corporation more, the corporation HAS THE OBLIGATION to ditch the alternatives & cater to that totalitarian regime, in exchange for its food, its 'hit', its gratification.
http://www.curseoftheblackgold.com/ for an example.
It isn't a person, so there is no "morality".
It hasn't a soul, so it can't have any real/long-term consequences.
So long as artificial persons have equal rights to real ones, but no real consequences ( privelege, or Private Lege/Law for corporations/lobbyists+special-interests ), then the removal of rights from real persons, *to* artificial persons, is unstoppable.
Take a look at what corporations/governments ( which are corporations, same as private corps's are ) do, to remove rights from the world:
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2008/08/russiageorgia-the-impact-first/
And ask yourself what "morality" has to do with this world?
"Morality" is a sham, a fraud, something that doesn't have anything to do with what actually is.
Have a code of conduct, by all means, but recognize that 99.9% of the world has a *plastic* code of conduct, and that the "Stanford Experiment" showed that "inhumane" abuse is really included in the "normal" category, not rejected, as "morality" PRETENDS...
( there was an excellent book, years ago, on the criminality of the majority:
showing, explicitly, that the only thing limiting nearly-everyone from complete abuse of law was fear of getting seen/caught.
Cheating on taxes, taking things if it looks like no one else is looking, illegal drug use, rape, molesting, everything.
"Law Abiding Citizens" is a fraud, as only an autistic is going to toe the line, and autistics are defectives, everyone "knows" that.. saying exactly what they mean, being truthful, the idiots.. )
--
If you value your soul, then you'll stick to some code of conduct, even if it means your death.
THAT is the difference between those who have real integrity, and acceptable/normal ones, corps, gov't-corps, etc:
the ones with *real* integrity are deemed insane, and the less the normal world, and the insane, have to do with each other, the better for everyone, right?
I don't understand why such obvious facts are ignored by so many..
You want to fix "rights" and "morality" or some equivalent into the world, you are going to have to put corps in their place, removing their "full personhood rights, not much responsibility" from 'em.
Good Luck(tm).
Let's not forget that Yahoo (or AT&T / Yahoo if AT&T happens to be your ISP) uses web-bugs, those invisible 1 pixel graphics, to stalk it's users. Of course they came up with their own cutsie name for them, "web beacons".
Yeah, it's funny how few legislators seem to get this. Ban a drug? I'll get it in Holland. Ban bribery? We'll move the company to the Bahamas for "greater operational flexibility." Pass a law to right some terrible wrong and the "offending" corporation or person will always go somewhere else.
For the US government and the taxpayers, restrictive laws are often a very expensive exercise in futility.
For an illustrative example, google Blackwater illegal prosecution and you'll see that they get away with murder. Literally.
Or for another example, google Chevron Chernobyl.
The key feature of "Globalisation" as we know it is US corporations (and military) being able to break local and international law at will. Apparently in the US this isn't considered a problem.
you had me at #!
What ever happened to the Prime Directive?
The US Gov has the right to tell a _US_ company how to behave.
If the US company doesn't like it, it should stop being a US company.
A fair number of multinational companies set up complicated corporate structures to control their exposure to laws and regulations.
BUT, for many companies the US is still "The Market" for them, so if the USA says "heel", they will.
The US Gov doesn't have the right to tell a Chinese company in China what to do, but the US Gov can always ban all products from that Chinese company, and arrest people from that company if they step on US territory. If that company doesn't have anything to do with the USA, that might not affect it much.
If you want to do business in a country where the laws block you from operating within your ethical framework, whatever that is, you shouldn't do business there.
Companies that exploit cheap labor in foreign markets are not ethically against doing that; if they were, they wouldn't do that.
Asking companies to develop policies about ethics in foreign dealings is an insult. Our government may well be composed of craven cowards who refuse to stand up for right unless it is convenient or profitable but asking private companies to take a stand is absurd.
Color this: We have no business doing business with China or Russia who both flagrantly murder and violate the civil rights of innocents without cause.Allowing the Olympics to take place in China or sending Americans to compete or as tourists while they slaughter monks in Tibet is beyond disgusting. How low we have fallen.
"US law is not world law." Maybe we should fix this since we have the most powerful country in the world. Being the only superpower kind of sticks us with being the worlds policeman regardless of whether we want the job or not. I don't agree with stepping over their peoples views with ours but policing their governments views though will probably be inevitable. In a world where instabilities can lead to getting us all killed those instabilities and their causes(corruption, abuse, etc) can no longer be tolerated. So far, we've largely behaved like a benevolent uncle, with iraq and even iran, giving plenty and demanding little that isn't being paid for. Probably should get out the cane/big stick more often, especially with china and the russian federation. Especially when it comes to bad IT behavior/hacking/spamming and invasions, you know the obviously wrong things. I just wish we had more of an ethical leg to stand on, Bush literally blew a foot off when he invaded Iraq.
...to bring jobs back to America.
The key feature of "Globalisation" as we know it is US corporations (and military) being able to break local and international law at will. Apparently in the US this isn't considered a problem.
Governments have no one else but themselves to blame when someone breaks laws in their country. If they can't even enforce their own laws, that doesn't make them much of a government does it?
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