Yahoo Hires Ethics Officer

By the Betanews Staff | Published June 28, 2007, 5:40 PM

Yahoo's announcement Thursday that it had created a new position called "Chief Compliance and Ethics Officer" is raising eyebrows, and some are speculating that it may have something to do with the criticism it received at its annual shareholder's meeting about its cooperation with the Chinese government. David Farrell, formerly chief compliance officer at Sun, has been hired for the position.

Among Farrell's responsibilities would be to ensure that the company is complying with the best practices of the industry at large, as well as being socially responsible and protecting the privacy of its users. In the most widely publicized example of Yahoo's cooperation with China, a writer was sentenced to a 10-year prison team after Yahoo provided access to the man's e-mail account to authorities. Yahoo has since been sued over the incident.

Comments

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This is a corporate position, employing a corporate insider from another...corporation.

A poet laureate or philosopher would have been a better choice.

What will happen here is that Yahoo will still send information to China's internet police. The only difference being that this guy will claim that it still is in compliance with some shadowy standard of ethical conduct that just happens to have been promulgated by a(wait for it) corporate industry watchdog.

...New boss, same as the old boss...

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is it eithical to steal from each other and resell same content different labels, or sue each other for things that were never black and white in the past?

some times i wonder how these companies sleep at night...

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Hey Second Shadow, how about:
"What do business and ethics have to do with each other in this day and age, and since when have corporations really *cared* about ethics unless being forced to by the laws of the land?"

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This article BEGS a few caustic comments ....
Fire away, guys (and gals)!

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