We are fortunate to live in a country that allows for freedoms wetake for granted unless we have lived in another country around theworld. With enough imagination and courage, we can start a businessselling just about anything, and few of us want to mess with thissacred privilege.
Imagine living somewhere where the government would prohibit anybusiness activity that didn't meet with the government's narrow rangeof acceptable criteria?
That said, I read an Associated Press report once that gave mepause for thought.
What kind of ethical responsibility do we have as business ownersto create products that will do no harm? A business owner can createa product that is fully within the law, but what if it encouragesactions that will be a nuisance, or worse?
The report in the newspaper was about a new product that willenable junk e-mail to proliferate in a new, even more invasive way. Acompany has figured out how to invent "pop up e-mails" which pop upon the screen, as one annoyed recipient put it, "Like somebodybarging in your office and interrupting you."
This new product was invented with many target audiences, and afew of the outcomes will be positive. The inventor claims that histool will help system administrators send alert notices to networkusers more efficiently, for example.
But, that's not the full story. The lion's share of his income iscoming from buyers of the newest and greatest spam technique.Essentially, this guy invented a more sophisticated way to spam.
Perhaps some of you who learn of this will think, "Hey, this isAmerica, and if this guy developed a technology that is marketable,profitable and smart, all the power to him. It's not his fault orresponsibility if it happens to be used for an undesirable result.
"There are plenty of positive uses for the product as well, and hecan't control what happens to his product once it hits the market."
All of this statement is true, but it doesn't sit well with me.Spam proliferates throughout the Internet because it's easy.(Although I can't figure out how it ever works, and why anyreasonable human being ever would respond to the garden variety spamthat hits most of our boxes. Maybe all it takes is a 5 percentresponse and that's enough to profit).
Let's face it, for spam to have taken over to the extent that itdoes, plenty of business owners have devoted their livelihoods to it.Is that OK?
Here's the dilemma we all should struggle with. If we say it's notOK, where do we draw the line?
Who is to determine which business operations are acceptable andwhich are not? Since none of us wish to be limited by "big brother,"we vote for freedom of expression, and then... we live with spam.
So imagine this business owner toiling away for 100-hour weeks,inventing a new technology that he knows will be snapped up at a niceprofit by the spammers of the world. How does he sleep at night?
By rationalizing to himself that there are a few good and decentbusiness owners who use spam responsibly, and it's not his problem ifsome don't. By reassuring himself that it is his primaryresponsibility to take care of his family and not the entire country.By keeping his focus on the positive uses he imagines for hisproduct.
Where does he cross the line into business behavior that we mightdeem at its best suspect and at its worst unethical?
I believe the answer to this question lies with his motivation.Only he (or she) knows what is in his or her heart.
Did he invent a product with good intentions, which unfortunatelyis being snapped up by customers using the product for harmful means,or is the opposite the truth? The product was invented with profitsenvisioned coming from an eager customer base of spammers, and thepositive uses are really a front to justify a business that profitsfrom selling to customers who will be using the product for harmfulpurposes.
Is negative use of the product accidental and unfortunate, and aminor part of the business, or is it actually the most significantpart of sales, and the business owner is really purposefully goingafter that market and seeing dollar signs?
Is what this business owner did within the law? Probably, yes.
Is it ethical? That depends on your perspective.
Personally, I couldn't sleep at night if I knew that my writingswere causing harm, not good, 70 to 80 percent of the time.(I couldn'tlive with it if it were even 10 percent of the time!)
No amount of profit potential could convince me otherwise. Aninteresting question you might want to ask yourself: What percentageis OK with you (your product being used for harmful purposes) if youwere a business owner?
You can reach Azriela Jaffe via the Intelligencer Journal, 8 W.King St., P.O. Box 1328, Lancaster, PA 17608-1328, or e-mail her atazriela@mindspring.com
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