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Microsoft On List of Most Ethical Companies
walterbyrd writes "Microsoft is among the world's most ethical companies, according to a list put together by the Ethisphere Institute in New York. Overall, 110 companies made the prestigious list, including Microsoft and 35 other newcomers. The complete list was reported by Forbes."
says it all.
...WIndows Genuine Advantage for that.
The bar, after all, is so low.
Mind the Gap
I would have thought that refusing to license patents, demanding 30% of every purchase, and generally behaving in an anti-competitive fashion would have earned Apple a top spot on the list.
Don't worry, Hitler received many similar awards too,
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Clearly this is a different meaning of the word "Ethical" than I'm familiar with.
I wonder how much they paid to get on that list.
Is the only one on the list that tried to screw me. After a year of them trying to get me to pay for the same airline tickets twice I finally had to get a lawyer after them.
To me this says more about the companies that aren't on the list than it does about Microsoft,
Did they look into the "per-processor pricing" days of Microsoft?
Microsoft On List of Most Ethical Companies
This doesn't say much good on corporations in general then.
It seems that Microsoft should be on the list. After all, Best Buy made the list too. If Best Buy made the damn list - Oracle, Microsoft, hell Sony should make it too.
"Companies" is the plural of "company." "Company's" is the possessive form.
After reading the actual list and seeing some of the other alleged ethical companies in there, it's really not much to be proud of.. eBay??
I was attributing this to Forbes malice, then i noted the message at the bottom of the slashdot page: Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity
... as if millions of geeks suddenly cried out in objection and were suddenly silent.
Who do I have to pay off to get on that list?
Must have cost a lot in bribes for M$ to get on the most-ethical list.
Life is tough. Life is even tougher when you're stupid.
Where's paypal? Oh hi eBay!
I honestly thought there was a tie with Ethisphere and Microsoft but after looking at every one of their board members and ties...
We should start a new Slashdot and return control to the geeks. It actually wouldn't be that hard to get some users to
Forbes has been pro-Microsoft, anti-Linux for years. Someone with some weight at Forbes has a conflict of interest I imagine.
The link in the parent post is VERY NSFW (and very gross)
A list of ethical companies released by Forbes? What will be next, list of best people released by Hannibal Lecter?
Nancy, you're not getting another handbag for your birthday. Stop dropping hints already.
You have to be when you are reporting in to your parole officer weekly.
Have gnu, will travel.
Ethisphere Institute rockets to top of the list of least ethical research institutions displacing former champion Mindcraft.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
There's a difference.
Nearly 3,000 companies were nominated--or nominated themselves--to be considered this year. The record-high number of nominations and applications demonstrates companies' desire to be acknowledged for high ethical standards.
See... companies nominate themselves... I wonder how much money under the table to the think tanks or people paid off it takes to be listed as most ethical? Is it as many as it takes to get OOXML a rubber stamp as an "open" standard?
Ethisphere reviewed nominations from companies in more than 100 countries and 36 industries. Ethisphere's proprietary rating system, which it calls the Ethics Quotient, is based on a series of multiple-choice questions in a survey that is designed to capture a company's performance in an objective and standardized way.
Ah, it's proprietary. That means first and foremost "We won't tell the specifics of how this was determined" That's what proprietary means, right? The exact details are secret, and therefore magically valid?
The winnowing process includes reviewing codes of ethics and litigation and regulatory infraction histories
Because unethical companies always have successful litigation/regulatory infractions against them, and ethical ones don't? There's no such thing as a regulatory agency being in bed with a corp. Judges are never corrupt. What's unethical is never legal and always breaks regulations, and what's ethical is always legal and never breaks regulations?
evaluating investment in innovation and sustainable business practices
Because innovative companies are automatically ethical and companies with "unsustainable" business practices are automatically unethical?
Any company that has had significant legal trouble over the past five years is dropped.
Because getting billion dollar fines in 2008 and being found liable for patent infringement is not significant legal troubles?
Companies that focus on alcohol, tobacco or firearms also get the boot.
Because it's arbitrarily declared unethical for Alcohol, Tobacco, or Firearms, to exist, or what? That alone totally undermines Ethisphere credibility.
Firearms are essential for the preservation of human life.
So is Alcohol.. first of all Alcohol is one of the first antiseptics humans made, has important medical scientific uses; has spurred many innovations. The product is not a bad one, and also, many "green fuel" producers are Alcohol companies (also referred to as Ethanol)
BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-ad nauseum
I was a subscriber for a while, until they sent me a renewal notice written to look like a collections notice. A prior orkplace used to routinely be named on a "Best Places to Work" list (not by Forbes, though) to the collective dismay of all who worked there. These sorts of lists don't mean what you think they mean, unless you think they don't mean anything.
"I don't want part of any club that would have me as a member".
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I do not think it means what you think it means. For a convicted monopolist with a track record of betraying their partners, subverting governments and standards bodies, and all around ruthless behavior to make the list, I wonder if the word 'ethical' means something to them other than what my dictionary says it does. Oddly enough Google, with their 'don't be evil' motto, doesn't seem to have made the list. I know they have committed their share of sins over the years, but it seems that what they have done so far does not hold a candle to even what Microsoft has done over the last decade.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
I doubt a respectable source would attempt to do such list. No surprises here.
Indeed.
Ethisphere selected the companies for having "leading ethics and compliance programs".
Having a program has as much to do with being ethical as being in a program has to do with being sober.
Consider the ISO 9000 quality standard. It's like the measure of ethics in the story. It is not what quality you have, it is how well it is documented and checked. A well documented 50% failure rate can be perfectly ISO9000 certified. If Google has a simple 'do no evil' ethic, and Microsoft has a team of lawyers writing great tombs on exactly how much dicking-people-over is allowed, then Microsoft has a better documented ethics program. When looking at ethical conduct, you need to specify GOOD ethical conduct, not just consistency.
to get on the list
If I control the criteria for judging, I can name any company ethical or unethical, which is why lists such as this seem completely useless to me.
In my opinion, all corporations as they reach certain size, became evil.
Microsoft was already evil when it consisted of just Gates and Allen (Gates provided enough evil for both at the time, but later Allen tried to make up for lost time). Then Microsoft grew up to become way more evil that most of the companies you are thinking of.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
I'm pretty sure that the Medicis were total bastards. And why is an Italian family even on this list?
Microsoft repeatedly changed agreements with developers. At one point, they required developers to pay thousands of dollars for a two-year membership, and then less than a year later simply discontinued that program and replaced it with a similar program that required new payment.
Microsoft sold Microsoft Money, claiming that it could import Quicken data. In fact, the box was empty but they promised a download in less than 60 days, which was repeatedly delayed. By then, it was too late to legally return the empty box to the retailer. And, finally, it did not import Quicken data. The entire product was a fraud.
Microsoft sold versions of Office, at the same time, which were different. We needed to standardize, and complained to Microsoft. We were told that “the version in each box was the version we purchased,” and that “version control was not part of the product.” In fact, Microsoft has admitted that they have no idea what versions they produce or ship and are not able to replicate builds.
Microsoft has an effective monopoly on Word. As a result they have terminated development work to fix bugs, and Word has many of the same bugs it had 15 years ago (such as tables not formatting across page boundaries).
Microsoft simply overpowered the Justice Department in their monopoly probe, paying about 100 times as much in legal expenses as the Justice Department could afford.
Europe has not been as scared to reign in Microsoft’s illegal competitive practices as the US. As a result, Microsoft is the most fined company in the world. Yet, the delay every time and consistently pay more fines for refusing to comply with ruling.
Microsoft charged PC vendors for a copy of their OS for every machine they built, even if the machine shipped did not include the OS. This requirement was built into their contract, and PC vendors could not negotiate.
Microsoft made retailers eat the entire cost of product returns, unlike every other software company. Retailers could not survive if they didn’t carry Microsoft software, but most retailers’ broke even or lost money because of the onerous return policy.
Microsoft required Intel to write all of the BIOS and low-level CPU code and give it to Microsoft for free. Microsoft then sold it. One year Intel objected and Microsoft refused to support Intel’s latest processor, causing sales to go close to zero. Intel had to immediately capitulate to the blackmail.
Microsoft consistently and purposefully damages the Macintosh user interface in their products so the GUI experience is not superior on a Mac compared to a PC.
IMHO, Microsoft should be awarded the LEAST ethical company of the last century.
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
Would an ethical company pay another (SCO) so SCO could continue to try to derail Linux with lawsuits (based on, AFAICT, nothing)?
Microsoft PAID for this right?
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Ethical in regards to what? Ethical to whom?
HP is one of the worst companies I have ever worked for. They treat employees like shit, employ brain-dead project managers and never give raises to anyone.
They've had several major lawsuits in the past year, including failure to deliver and another against their former CEO.
They hire prejudiced people who are very vocal about it and project managers who don't even know what field they're managing.
I'm calling bullshittery on this list.
Ethical must mean who didn't kill the most babies this year.
I for one, won't take anything they say seriously after naming Microsoft as an ethical company...
It's a low appraisal of EVERYONE ELSE.
Really though, Microsoft generally doesn't lock down their OS from tinkering (aside from lack of source), and unless windows mobile 7 has changed things you have file manager access and everything in their mobile platform. Android inexplicably doesn't come with a file manager last I checked. Absurd!
And unlike Sony, they aren't sending cease and desist letters to kinect hackers.
It is thanks to Microsoft (And IBM) we have the PC after all.
And they could easily be far worse patent trolls than they currently are.
A once-VP of a company I once worked for said, paraphrasing here: "Company 3 would negotiate with MS and MS would revise a contract between MS and Company 3 per the meeting. Then Company 3 workers would hold the new version and the old against the light (page by page) so they could find the changes MS made that were not part of the things agreed at the latest meeting." Hmm. Maybe that is considered ethical in some universe?
Where's my favorite CDO hedge fund? Didn't make the list? You're kidding!
Safest nuclear power plants
1. Fukushima Daiichi plant
I'll bet they didn't consult Richard Stallman!!!!!
Rather, the World’s Most Ethical Company designation is awarded to those companies that have leading ethics and compliance programs, particularly as compared to their industry peers.
Using this criteria, it doesn't surprise me in the least that Microsoft made the list. Indeed, I'd expect the list to be heavily biased towards big companies, because big companies typically have formal ethics policies, compliance officers, ethics hotlines, etc. Big public companies in the U.S. have Sarbanes-Oxley controls, etc. as well as a host of other government nonsense they have to comply with.
I would bet that in general Microsoft employees do not break the law. I doubt that if, for example, you said to a Microsoft sales rep "give me an extra 25% off and I'll kick back 10% to you" that it would work - largely because as a big company, it's difficult to hide those kind of things...so many eyes see things, everything processes through largely unknown teams and departments, etc. I'm sure Microsoft aggressively employees lobbyists, but I very much doubt they ever gave a satchel of cash to a Senator for a vote - it's just too hard to get that kind of cash out of a corporate account without someone knowing about it.
Alas, in our culture (or rather, our "diversity"-fied lack of it), "being ethical" is largely equated with not breaking the law.
Moreover, as a "young" company, MSFT's culture isn't really geared toward that. They see themselves as tech titans and part of the bright shining future, not smokey backroom deals. Are they an aggressive monopolist cut-off-their-air-supply kind of company? Sure - they're brutal, merciless competitors. But that's not what this list is about.
The guy who cheats less seems ethical? The only think stopping MS from dominating is the anti-trust lawsuits they lost in the last few years.
If Microsoft is ethical in comparison to other corporations, what does that say about other corporations?
God spoke to me.
Actually, most of the world pre-WWII thought Hitler was one of the best and more brilliant leaders of the 20th century. Especially following the Olympic games. He was even praised as being multicultural and liberal during the Olympics (which, in case you didn't know, was the Reich's first true and widest international showcasing). Mind you he temporarily took down all the anti-Semitic signs, forced the citizens to treat the international guests like pampered kings and queens and hid any evidence of his anti-[insert one of several groups here] throughout the entirety of the games. But the Third Reich was thought of as a peaceful, wonderful and even Utopian society by the masses at the time. Heck--the Nuhrenburg Rally canceled immediately prior to the "justified" invasion of Poland was going to be themed around "Peace" that year. Of course, later we found out the invasion was entirely unjustified and the Polish attacks on the Reich were fabricated...etc...etc...
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
So let me get this straight...
In order to be on the Ethical Company List you have to:
1. Be a company
2. Nominate your company (nothing unethical there!)
3. Be proven unethical (because everyone is ethical until proven otherwise!) by:
3a. Government officials (We all know they're ethical and never take money from companies)
3b. Lawyers (Gets paid to lie)
3c. Professors
4. Must not have too many major lawsuits. (Several is okay though apparently)
5. Exclude ANY and ALL reports from ANY and ALL consumers, employees or former employees (basically the ones who know the company the best)
So it looks like what it comes down to is who can throw the most cash around and you too can be on this list of ethical companies.
I'm going to go ahead and say that if you've ever had to change the name of your company because of a huge ethical scandal then you shouldn't get to be on a list of ethical companies for a little more than 10 years. I'm looking at you Accenture (aka Anderson Consulting).
If you didn't come to party don't bother knocking on my door. Prince '1999'
Hmm... "Most Ethical". Actually, I think it's kind of like awarding the loser in a beauty contest "Best Personality".
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
I guess profiting from those who fence stolen property is not a disqualification.
So is Alcohol.. first of all Alcohol is one of the first antiseptics humans made, has important medical scientific uses; has spurred many innovations. The product is not a bad one, and also, many "green fuel" producers are Alcohol companies (also referred to as Ethanol)
Indeed. I mean, how many people owe their very existence to alcohol?
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
We know, we know, tons of people on /. love to hate MS. Enough. If you don't think they should be on this list, don't just accuse them of bribery--cite some instances of unethical behavior. Don't make them vague, make them specific and look-up-able, preferably with links. It would also be great if you would cite how MS is worse than companies not on the list.
To be clear, I'm not necessarily supporting Microsoft. I'm just tired of idiots spouting hatred that makes them cool in the eyes of their friends, rather than injecting real content into the discussion. (Personally I don't have nearly enough information to have an opinion. I didn't look at thousands of companies to compare their records on ethics--who am I to comment on such a list?)
Just look at the source Forbes. They love Enron, they loved Auther Andersen.
Look at other companies:
Aflac
Best Buy
Dun & Bradstreet
Hartford Financial Services Group
Housing Development Finance
ebay
WAste Management
My personal experience is that the corporate definition of "Ethical" is what we mere mortals would define as "Legal". If it's legal (even if it took a judge or ten to decide), then Big Company defines that as ethical. In my eyes, there are lots of things that are legal that I don't consider ethical. Of course, that's my view of the world...
Almost ethical?
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Indeed. I mean, how many people owe their very existence to alcohol?
Since the reason refrigeration was originally developed was to cool beer, and pasteurization was originally developed as a method to stop beer from souring, and those are just two of many examples; beer increased the size of the population the country could support... a lot of people exist who would not exist if not for Beer.
Oh right... and imbibing sufficient quantities of beer while accompanied by a member of the opposite sex, has lead to many births. Many famous people in history would not have been born if not for this; the world would not be as great a place as it is today.
I concur with you wholeheartedly. Frankly, I'd consider the companies on this list to be the most litigious, most likely to push one under the table to law enforcement, and least favorable to do business with. I should note, this is after seeing the headline and thinking "Wow, cool, Microsoft is improving. I've thought they've had some decent products over the last couple years, and have been particularly non-hostile."
Ditto on the alcohol and firearms. A firearm in the home is much more likely to be used to preserve life of the house's tenants than save it. Alcohol, in addition to being a great medical aide, is also (IMO) a superior antidepressant/coping mechanism than, say, SSRI antidepressants.
And tobacco. In terms of those harmed and business ethics, they're at least on par with "Big Pharma", and it's unlikely that they can pull too many favors due to the political hostility in play against them due to people thinking "what I think is good for me is good for you, too".
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
As terrible as these corporations are, in comparison to food and clothing companies they're pretty decent. Also, a company like Microsoft still outputs decent software and whatnot (it's not ALL utterly terrible).
"Companies that focus on alcohol, tobacco or firearms also get the boot." And why can't these companies be ethical? If it wasn't obvious that the list is skewed with the inclusion Microsoft then it should be clear by this auto-de-select criteria.
Facts take all of the premium out of arm waving - T. Reynolds
It's a form of advertising that people take seriously enough to actually discuss. Better than some ad that people gloss over without a thought.
1. Compile a list that will make any business on that list look good. ("Ethical" is a good enough topic, as it's suitably nebulous.)
2. Quietly enable businesses to pay to be on that list. (They don't necessarily pay in cash. Perhaps good will or free licences will do?)
3. Ensure the list is allegedly compiled by an independent body. (The Ethisphere Institute seemed cooperative enough, or perhaps it approached Forbes, given its "forgiving nature"?)
4. Let a well known name publish it for posterity. (Forbes is big and trusted enough, right?)
Now the listing businesses (Forbes and/or Ethisphere Institute) get what they want from the listed businesses, and the listed businesses get their positive exposure. Win, win!
BUSINESS ETHICS.
Besides the obvious (Microsoft), there are other ridiculous entries. Like Freescale, who likes to pretend it loves the GPL while violating it daily. Or Patagonia, a company from the US who tries to enforce their trademark, even against companies that are actually based in Patagonia (Argentina), or eBay, who's subsidiary Paypal takes people's money without explanation, and censors free speech by closing accounts of any organization or person they don't like. Cisco, who is also a GPL violator and has engaged in tax evasion. UPS: scammed Canadians with import fees. Westpac: A company that raised mortgage interest twice as much as the Australian national bank and competitors.
Of course, many many truly ethical companies that contribute a lot to society and have strict codes of ethics didn't make it into the list.
The explanation: This is just a paid-for service like carbon offsetting, or ITIL, ISO 9000, and others.
Essentially: Pay us money and we'll give you good advertisement covered as independent research.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Hitler never once released unfinished, buggy software to increase his income. I'm not saying he was a good guy, just saying there were some nasty, destructive things he didn't do.
In further criticism of this list, Caterpillar exclusively supplies Israel with the machinery used to bulldoze Palestinian homes... so. Yeah. Gonna put this aside.
Microsoft is more like a guy in a large town who bullied and lied and scammed everybody for decades until he owned half the land and everybody was in debt to him. But their kids grow up thinking of him as the nice rich guy who donates textbooks to the school and gives every family free turkeys at Christmas. Raised on land stolen from the people now having to be smiley and deferential to even just get their turkeys.
It's easy to be "nice" when you're vastly rich. But nobody with a valid claim to good judgement should EVER forget where all that wealth and power came from. Or the amount that a just accounting leaves them owing to the people they screwed over. Or, crucially, how much those assets would have created if they hadn't been in the hands of a slimebucket. If you mug me and steal my wallet when I'm on the way to pay my rent, you're not "a nice guy" for then giving me a few bucks months later to help me pay the late fees accrued from not having had that money in the first place.
eBay and their subsidiary paypal is likely the most evil companies I've ever dealt with.
It's easy to be "nice" when you're vastly rich. But nobody with a valid claim to good judgement should EVER forget where all that wealth and power came from. Or the amount that a just accounting leaves them owing to the people they screwed over. Or, crucially, how much those assets would have created if they hadn't been in the hands of a slimebucket. If you mug me and steal my wallet when I'm on the way to pay my rent, you're not "a nice guy" for then giving me a few bucks months later to help me pay the late fees accrued from not having had that money in the first place.
Do you question the ethics of the authors of the open source code you use? Was your browser written by a bigot? Was your editor maintained by a homophobe, or a thief, an atheist, a baptist, a mugger, or a communist? Was your file system written by a murderer?*
It's easy to be "mean" when you can ignore the provenance of a gift, and conveniently never pass judgment on where that code came from.
* To be honest, this is the only actual claim of these I know to have a factual basis. I pretty much have no idea which open source developers or products are written by people I would agree with or not, nor do I much care. Hell, I read Slashdot all the time knowing Pudge contributed a ton of the code, yet he's a person whose political views I find selfish and loathsome because he supports a different set of thieves in a different Washington.
John
Next you will hear Apple being the second most secure company, beaten marginally by none other than our favourite, HB Gary.
For PETA it means 'hypocritical' or 'fashionable'.
Ethisphere Institute. Who are these guys? By what criteria to the put people on their list? The list seems rather suspect (almost like a paid marketing campaign). When a large corporation is otherwise a pariah, but have money, they can buy marketing firms and order them to set up all kinds of promotional junk. I've never heard of this outfit 'Ethisphere Institute'. Are they available for kids parties?
Nobody said the OSS people are "nice". For example, Torvalds is known to be a git sometimes, and RMS is a known crazy fanatic. etc. etc. etc.
None of them are trying to get on any "most ethical person list", nor claiming to be saviors of the world by dumping billions onto "charitable causes".
And I, for one, avoids reiserfs like the plague, as I have for years ever since ext3 came out (which was years before Hans was even a murder suspect).
Don't quote me on this.
One word i would never ever attribute to Microsoft is ethical and im surprised anyone would put Microsoft within ten miles of a list with ethical companies. Their history is littered with examples of bad ethics and statements. They have been sued and sentenced numerous times in court.
Cant wait for their most privacy respecting list, with Facebook ontop no doubt.
HTTP/1.1 400
Ethics and morality are two different things afterall...;)
I like how no one's brought up SingTel's well known eavesdropping practices.. ethical my ass. and I'm sorry but no bank anywhere is ethical. At all. This list is entirely bogus (ofc that was obvious as soon as Microsoft 'we sue and troll by proxy to kill our competition' showed up on there.)
"Ethics" means different things to different people; what is ethical to us in the FOSS end of the world may not be entirely the same as what is ethical to a business. Businesses are predators at best (or parasites at worst), so perhaps behaving like a predator doesn't count as un-ethical; but to be fair, Microsoft (and Bill Gates) have put a good deal of effort into being seen as ethical. One can of course with some right be sceptical about the depth of their sentiment, but there is no doubt about the effort, and apparently that has paid off.
These kinds of industry award lists are simply paid advertisement. Probably the best example is the Oscars along with the Golden Globe and other entertainment awards. Of course Hollywood knows how to put on a show that makes it look like something other than blatant advertising. CSR industry, not so much. But the point is, whatever industry you're in, someone does an award... investment managers, banks, restaurants, hotels. Does anyone really think these kinds of awards are handed out based on a thorough, unbiased assessment of all the potential candidates?
i totally agree. i think a good example is gates - everyone i know now talks of him as this wonderful guy who is changing the world or something. never about the fact that his 'charity' still makes money (openly) off companies abusing others (look at the wikipedia article if you don't know for a start), not to mention the wonderful 'future of education' crap that seems to be still revolving around proprietary lock-in to one company (guess which). if he is *truly* wanting to make things right and not just another rich guy with a guilt complex that just wants to get people to like him without *really* risking his riches, i'd be very surprised. so far i see no evidence at all of it.
It's IBM and the clones who deserved the credits, you can drop MS.
MS was just piggybacking.
People started noticing MS after Bill Gates became the richest man on the planet.
Off topic:
Why isn't the mother of BG given credits??
How different the PC landscape would have been if
”mama” would not have served on the board of directors of United Way with John Opel, CEO of IBM!??
Shit, I can't even imagine how humans survived back before the discovery of gun powder.
Constantly fending off bear attacks. It must have been a real nightmare
Not Meta-modding due to apathy.
If Microsoft is on the top of a list of ethical companies then consumers are truly fucked.
I think you made a slight mistake:
Firearms are essential for the /destruction/ of human life
Sure, after getting to be number 1 by buying out the competition that even promised a hint of a glimmer of innovation, then stifling and choking them and leaving us with what meager offerings were left, he is now out to buy redemption through charities. I'm sorry; my memory is still good, and I still ain't buyin'
"Firearms are essential for the preservation of human life."
Sorry? Run that by me again.
"Firearms are essential for the preservation of human life."
Unless there's a "Whoosh" going on here that I've missed, that is the most Orwellian reality distortion I've ever heard. Clearly the esteemed poster is ignorant of the function of firearms or the purpose to which they are put on a daily basis. Or he/she is American.
glad i'm not the only one :)
Indeed. I mean, how many people owe their very existence to alcohol?
Most of them.
I know this is off topic, but this back and forth shows what I consider to be the major problem with western politics as the public sees it.
Frequently consideration is not given to any more than two points in the solution space of opinion on any topic - never mind that they don't lie in a straight line nicely joining all of the available positions.
This childish distillation of politics into "you're either with us or against us" basically removes all possibility of sensibly discussing issues and the multi-dimension space of answers to individual problems.
Makes me sad and from what I've seen even here on Slashdot the American and (to a lesser extent) English political discourse devolves into name calling as a result of someone "not cheering for my team".
Yes, I feel better for getting it off my chest.
There are so many better goatse links out threre, why 'd you try with this one?
Try http://goatse.ru/ for example.
Isn't it time for Slashdot to create an article icon for Apple as well? Yes, in the 90s Microsoft was the IT villain, but now Apple has surpassed it for good with its walled garden of closed experience. Time for a "Steve Jobs the Borg" avatar!! :p
"Sum Ergo Cogito"
What a joke. Australia has four big retail banks (with the rest of the players in that industry being tiny in comparison) and anybody living here would agree with any of them ranking high on any objective ethics scale is absurd. Three out of the four made it on that list, ANZ, Westpac and NAB. Makes me wonder why Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the largest of the four, missed out. It's hard to see how it is any less ethical than the other three who made the list and from a local perspective it is possibly a tiny bit more ethical.
Great!
Now we know "Ethisphere Institute in New York" is full of shit.
ANZ who does the banking for BHP and Westpac which handles RIO TINTO (one of the least ethical mining companies - please excuse the tautology) is on this list... i call bullshit.
Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity
So called "Hanlon's Razor" is nothing but a poor comfort for those who deem themselves smart, but are weak and oppressed by arrogant, indifferent bullies, usually huge, faceless organizations such as corporations and governments. BTW, they (e.g. the IRS, MPAA, RIAA, BSA, ..., that guy whose fancy car you accidentally scratched, etc.) will never apply Hanlon's Razor on your case!
What it states in subtext is: "We can't fight back, so let's just insult their intellect, pretend there was something we could have done about the whole thing but out of pity we just chose not to, and feel a little bit superior to them."
The point is that no matter what their views, they have been giving rather than taking. MS have done a whole lot of taking, but thanks to their monopoly position and lack of drive for innovation, parts of the computing world have been held back for years and only now things starting to get better. Since Firefox helped to drive web standards adoption (and I suppose you could say since Flash got ported to other OSes :/ ), it's been much more convenient to use any OS you want at home. In the workplace MS still have a pretty solid grip just because of the number of "Windows Only" apps, though hopefully things will keep heading in the direction of diversity there too. And there's always WINE/Crossover I guess, though I haven't tried either for any "serious" apps or games for a few years.. I just have a VM for when I need to do Windows development (also means I don't need to go through the hassle of reinstalling/authenticating Windows and MS Office when I get new hardware), and I do all my gaming on consoles now.
which is totally what she said
If I were to have seen MS management on the beach in the face of an incoming tsunami, I don't think I would rush out to save them.
Thank you. I went and read the article, then went to see the comments. It's like so many of the top posters didn't read the article at all to see this "Most Ethical List" is a self serving pat on the back. It also doesn't say who took the survey? From the way I read this, they sent a survey to the company and let their marketing team decide how to best answer the questions.
Bogus.
"Convicted monopolist." Are you serious? That just sounds childish. So you're trying to imply that there is something inherently unethical about achieving a monopoly? Let's get real: the problem wasn't the fact that Microsoft achieved a monopoly (and FYI it wasn't even a true monopoly) -- it was what they did with it. How they abused it. How they leveraged that market share in underhanded ways. THOSE are the breach of ethics, NOT market share itself. Is this concept really that difficult to understand?
I've never even heard the term "monopolist" used by anyone until slashdot. It may be valid English, but it sure isn't found in everyday speech. I think it's obvious what's going on here: you're using Microsoft's unethical behavior to paint a picture where monopoly is by definition unethical. Kind of like the people who say "money is the root of all evil". It doesn't make any sense. Evil is determined through behavior, not state of being.
Again, are you serious? Just say what you really want to say, instead of playing word games.
> For example, Torvalds is known to be a git sometimes
I had forgotten about that bit of slang. Now I won't be able to look at GitHub again with a straight face.
To be fair, Han's filesystem killed your data many times before he killed his wife.
Caterpillar is the primary company that is aiding the Israelis in demolishing Palestinian homes and building Israeli ones. Best Buy is still the same company that brought us private Intranet copies of their website in-store with different prices than found on the publicly available Internet site. Just to name a few...
Best Buy made it on there, after all.
...what Ethisphere Institute says?
Those guys are right up there with Philip Morris for ethics.
Why? Because obesity and smoking are the two biggest lifestyle-related killers in America.
These guys spend billions to keep America buying carbs. To keep the Government from promoting a diet that is actually healthy. And it's killing us.
They call that ethical?!
Best Buy is on the list? They only outlived CompUSA and others because they are evil. Um boy, yes I'll take an extended warranty with that! It must be a list for last year only.
Hen, In Chicken House make Fox visit tasty.
Corporations should have all of the rights a slave has.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Oh, I get it, you're being ironic .. nice one CmdrTaco .. for a minute there you really had me going. I wonder where Ethisphere makes its money ..
A corporation's only mandate is to make money. Microsoft doesn't poison wells or denude wetlands to make its money, but it's not estranged from all of the immoral-though-legal acts that every rich bastard makes use of to work the system. It's not a proud thing to be the most honest of all thieves.
If you didnt notice, Forbes didnt even make their own list. Was the way they chose the list of people even ethical?
Yes, it is a list of ethical companies and the ones we invest our money in. What's wrong with that?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Given that Idi Amin could be considered the 'most ethical' head of state if you massage the criteria sufficiently, what were the criteria for this selection?
What interest does the Ethisphere Institute have in making such a selection?
Who are Ethisphere Institute and where does their funding come from?
Who are Ethisphere Institute's leaders and what is their background, their expertise and interest in ethics?
These are all reasonable questions to be asked and without satisfactory answers, the selection of any company for this honor is questionable.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Perhaps they ascribe to Moral relativism. ( whatever you think is ethical is ethical for you). That way , if microsoft followed their internal policies they are an 'ethical company'. That would explain everything about the poll.
Really?
Firearms are essential for the preservation of human life.
Really? That's rubbish.
Literally speaking, they're obviously not essential because there was a time when firearms didn't exist, yet human life was still preserved. But I don't want to pick nits, of course, so let me say instead that while I see your point, they're only essential when the other side's got firearms, too. Sure, when somebody's coming at you with a gun, your knife won't save you, as e.g. the natives of the Americas learned so painfully. But if nobody has firearms to begin with, there's no need for them.
Now you might say that firearms WILL eventually arise due to people experimenting and progress being made and all that. Sure, I'll give you that. But that doesn't mean that firearms are more than a necessary evil: and thus, specifically, an evil, which is arguably enough to keep firearms companies off the list.
The rest of your points I agree with, though.
Rerouting money to charity. What a monster.
The headline is probably true. Microsoft is probably among one of the most ethical corporations. That only means that corporations are not very ethical. That is reasonable given the facts. Their main goal is short term monetary gain for the quarterly report, they have the rights of a person and legally have none of the responsibilities of a person.
Right is wrong, black is white, good is bad, up is down...
Oh, Ethisphere Institute, who claim to be a research based institute, yet seem to be a for-profit business selling certification and a magazine. Obviously an authoritative source.
Constantly fending off bear attacks. It must have been a real nightmare
Human populations were smaller. They did not encroach so much into bear habitat or bear territory. There was so much territory, conflicts were less likely.
Cars had not been invented yet, so travel was less frequent. Before gunpowder, cities were built with walls, and homes much stronger, more suitable to resist bear breakin.
Firearms had less technologically sophisticated predecessors that sufficed but were more dangerous/had greater risks.
Pointy sticks, darts, bows and arrows, boomerangs. The bear could still kill you.
Rocks, forged bronze/steel. Again, the bear could still kill; but in the face of such opposition if used correctly, they might be scared away, avoiding an engagement.
the subject line says it all.
My question is: How much did Microsoft have to pay for this?
Of course, this could be on the up and up, but personally I cannot believe it.
No company that charges money for Windows could ever be considered ethical by anyone who understands and believes in human rights.
No company that gives an ethics award to a company that charges money for Windows could ever regain any shred of credibility.
So sorry, I have watched MS from the beginning, and the top levels of that company have always been extremely dishonest.
MS has stolen technology and ideas repeatedly, and paid $400M fines for their practices. People in Silicon Valley stopped approaching MS about sales of their companies because MS was so likely to steal the technology than buy it.
The man who now runs MS was part of this from the beginning, so I expect nothing has changed.
So I was looking to invest some money and figured, hey, as long as it earns decent interest, why not encourage ethical actions in the marketplace. So I looked at the list of the biggest companies in the "socially conscious" portfolio, and Microsoft was number one. Heck, I might as well invest in the vice fund; at least I wouldn't be lying to myself, and apparently they make a pretty good return on investment!
Nathan's blog
Literally speaking, they're obviously not essential because there was a time when firearms didn't exist, yet human life was still preserved.
There was not any point in the history of human civilization where there was not some kind of weapon used.
Different types of arms were used at different times. The purposes were the same, and the dangers were the same. It's just that they were less effective at preserving human life, and they were not as powerful a deterrant as a modified firearm
You going to say next that sword manufacturers, arrow makers, and people whose trade was to sharpen pointy sticks were evil too?
And any company that makes equipment used by any military is considered unethical?
Hell... if firearm manufacturers are unethical, what do you think about bomb manufacturers? How about nuclear power plant designers?
Let's just ignore all legitimate uses of these devices and assume they are all inherently evil. Nobody uses dynamite for any purpose but to blow people up, right? And guns are used for nothing but to shoot people, right?
Torvalds is known to be a git sometimes
It's not that bad. He even wrote a program to remind that to himself. Or maybe he wrote it to remind others?
This place has a [url=http://www.wholesaleidea.com/][b]cheap cell phones[/b][/url], you can take a look.
Getting awarded "THE ETHICS AWARD" by the Ethisphere Institute in New York, is as great as getting fucked in the arse by a donkey, and having photographs of the action show up in the worlds email in boxes - along with a very public conviction.....
.
The Ethisphere Institute = Corporate Bullshit Trip by Corporate Bullshit Artists.
Company based on lies and extortion, as well as slander, FUD, monopolies, ridiculous and perhaps illegal trade practices (dumping product to gain market share), patent infringement, etc. shipping jobs wholesale overseas when the government her does not capitulate to their legal demands. Overseas corporate offices, overcharging for defective softweare, slander, liable, and who knows what else. All in all the American dream (if you are Barrack Obama).
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke
Why Is Microsoft Seeking New State Laws That Allow it to Sue Competitors For Piracy by Overseas Suppliers?
I hate my customers.
If I love my customer, I cannot make money for my Product/Service.
Govt must constitute a panel to rewrite US Constitution and Quran