« Stockholm: The Darkest Season | Main | Marketing: The Dental Connection »
November 22, 2005
Sony Wounded, Politicians Smell Blood
"Sony insists on its Web site that it has recalled all affected CDs. However, Attorney General’s investigators were able to purchase numerous titles at Austin retail stores as recently as Sunday evening," according to a press release issued by the office of Greg Abbott, Attorney General for the great state of Texas.
Texas is great--it actually has a law against Sony's behavior. Did I not (along with about a billion other people) say it should be illegal? And, as it turns out, it is in that chunk of the country.
"The Attorney General’s lawsuit alleges the New York-based company violated a new Texas law protecting consumers from the hidden spyware. ... 'Sony has engaged in a technological version of cloak and dagger deceit against consumers by hiding secret files on their computers. Consumers who purchased a Sony CD thought they were buying music. Instead, they received spyware that can damage a computer, subject it to viruses and expose the consumer to possible identity crime.' "
Abbott, who is darned photogenic in cyberspace, is probably doing a little happy dance right now. Attorneys eneral, who are politicians, after all, love to defend citizens, or at least appear to, especially when they can do it in highly visible, low-risk ways. (Bet other state officials will join him, if they can.)
My friend Pete commented a few days ago that we shouldn't really blame Sony executives for their behavior, the company has a responsibility to its shareholders to maximize value, etc. But Pete's all wet on this one. In practical terms, any attempt to maximize shareholder value by using spyware has been completely eroded by this costly PR disaster and resulting lawsuits. (Not that anybody at Sony was smart enough to foresee this and stop it before it happened.)
But that's not the main reason I disagree. The main reason I disagree is because even if no one had ever discovered the spyware, secretly placing it on customer computers was wrong. Adults are supposed to understand the difference between right and wrong. Every damn thing shouldn't have to be spelled out and legislated. When you were growing up, did your mom need to tell you not to put bugs in her dinner plate? Probably not, and you were just a kid. We're talking about grownups here.
I'm not claiming that the difference between right and wrong is always clear but in this case, it's no contest. If the profit motive is a valid excuse for Sony's bad behavior, then everyone has a valid excuse. Because there's always a need to protect an industry from pirating or to win more air time for acts or to protect market share or to keep a company afloat or to donate to good causes or to prop up a stock price.
Pete suggests we need more legislation in self-defense. He's clearly right but it irks me. It irks me that individuals inside some companies so willingly demonstrate how little respect and consideration they have for the people who keep them in business. A company that cared about its customers would not do what Sony did. Sony's contempt was visible. As a result, it's pissed away a fair share of customer good will.
Posted by Deborah Branscum at November 22, 2005 03:45 PM
Comments
I didn't say we shouldn't blame them. OK, I hope I didn't say that. I'm too lazy to go look. In any case, what I should have said is that we should not be surprised. We have created an environment in which corporations feel legally obliged to push the envelope of proper behavior. Under those circumstances, we have no choice but to provide a stronger, more obvious envelope. The state of Texas appears to be doing that, and (for once) I applaud them.
As far as this PR nightmare turning into a counter-productive mess from the perspective of the shareholders, yeah, corporations will occasionally botch, but they (presumably) didn't think they were about to botch. Not everyone agrees with me that intent is critical in moral analyses, but it seems to me that before the PR mess, they probably thought no one would notice or care.
With respect to whether it's wrong to add bugs to an operating system if nobody notices, I'm in the skeptic camp on that one, which is not to say I am skeptical of what you say. Instead, I mean that the very definition of such bugs is whether anyone notices. Had they designed and/or tested the bugs out of their software, this all would have blown over by now; the fact that it may not be possible to do such a thing is a different issue.
And, finally, with respect to whether it's wrong to install "phone home" software, well, I have to agree with you there. That's outright evil, and they should have known better if they knew anything about the history of computing on the internet. EULAs be damned; they should have known nobody reads them.
Again, though, I feel obliged to point out that we should expect from time to time that corporations as we know them will commit mistakes of this breadth and depth, and we should calmly spank them and move on rather than be shocked and appalled.
Posted by: Pete at November 27, 2005 12:30 AM