An International Business Ethics Story

Louis RUELLAND

2007981

25 November 2020

BMBM6008

An International Business Ethics Story

Case Study:

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Executive Summary

Global ethics can be defined as a set of universal norms and values that are global in scope and that have an ethical relationship between states and individuals (Dower, 2009). In order for all people to live in harmony despite differences in religion, culture or language, fundamental values are needed that connect people to each other (Global Ethics Foundation). Whether in a family context or in society as a whole, these standards apply everywhere. In our society, we can very easily confuse ethics and morality. Ethics are rules common to the society that advocates living together. Morality, on the other hand, is the set of rules that we impose on ourselves. (The Politician, 2020). Today, in order to make companies respect all these standards, we have created Corporate Social Responsibility. This appeared in the 1960s in books on business such as 'Social Responsibilities of the Businessman by H. Bowen, 1953' (Rse Pro, 2012). The European Commission defines CSR as "the responsibility of companies for their impact on society (...) Businesses can become socially responsible by integrating social, environmental, ethical, consumer and human rights concerns into their business strategy and operations and following the law" (European Commission, 2011). There is, then, an ethical dilemma in the case of Google and we will be able to develop it further.

Table of Contents

Introduction        4

Methods        5

Friedman and Google        5

Google according to Freeman        6

Teleology and Utilitarianism at Google        7

Google Ethics        7

Google and CSR        8

Discussion        8

Conclusion        9

Recommendations        9

References        10

Introduction

Technology is developing faster and faster these days. Indeed, companies in this field and especially GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft) are pushing the limits of current technology every day. However, with all these inventions and systems at their disposal, some are taking advantage of them. Google has been accused of recording conversations without a caller having said "Okay Google" the introductory phrase of their voice assistant (Verheyden, Baert, Van Hee, Van Den Heuvel, 2019). This is what the Belgian media outlet VRT claims after a study conducted by four journalists (cited above). Indeed, they were able to retrieve more than a thousand audio recordings from different Google devices and via sources, were able to learn that some of the recordings were being listened to by Google employees. As a result of this study, Google denies any unwanted listening but advocates improving the technology. Indeed, Google admits that this work is crucial to improve the performance of their systems and that only 0.2% of the recordings were listened to (Gonzales, 2019). Indeed, if you go to Google's General Terms and Conditions it says "We collect information about your activity within our services (...). The information about your business that we collect may include the following (...) Audio and voice information when you use audio features (...). If you use our services to make and receive calls or to send and receive messages, we may collect information relating to telephone communications, such as your telephone number, sender's telephone number, recipient's telephone number, transfer numbers, time and date of calls and messages, duration of calls, etc.". (Google Inc, 2020). However, there is no guarantee that the data collected will be listened to by a Google employee. This is where Google's ethical problem lies. Indeed, if one accepts the Terms of Use but the activities carried out by the company have not been explicitly accepted by the user, then, even if this analysis allows Google to improve, it alters its relationship with consumers. As a result of this controversy, the Data Protection and Freedom of Information Commissioner in Hamburg (Germany) has asked for repercussions. As a result, Google did not listen in Europe for a period of 3 months. Through this method, the multinational company is trying to improve its image.

Methods

Friedman and Google

On 13 September 1970, Milton Friedman wrote The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits. In this article, which appeared in the New York Times Magazine, he wrote: "No individual can compel another, all cooperation is voluntary, all parties to the collaboration benefit or need not participate. We can understand by this that when a company carries out an action that affects its consumers, the latter must be informed and can, if they wish, refuse this action without repercussion on their experience with the brand. However, Google has not warned its users about their intention to view the records via employees and not machines. According to them, each audio was anonymous and the user's name was replaced by a number. However, the employees who listened could very easily find the person whose information was present on the recordings. Furthermore, Google has not obtained any form of CSR certification. As a reminder, CSR allows companies to highlight the high quality of their products, to allow consumers of certified companies to make indirect donations to the associations that these companies support and, finally, to have a better reputation among consumers through its good deeds (The Economist, 2015). As a result, we can consider that Google does not meet the CSR conditions for certification. Google has hurt its consumers by openly lying to them. Despite the fact that the multinational company advocates Machine Learning (making a machine learn by itself so that it improves every time), the fact that it has not included this clause in the conditions of use for a group with a worldwide presence is a betrayal for consumers.

Google according to Freeman

R. Edward Freeman published a book on stakeholder theory in 1984. This theory consists of a participative approach to corporate strategy. Indeed, it ensures that each of the stakeholders is interested in it (Fernandez, 2018). If we wish to apply this theory to Google, we realise that stakeholders are not at all in this model. Indeed, with this theory, the company takes into account all the players who are:

• The employees
• Suppliers
• Subcontractors
• The "specialists" (necessary to design a good strategy)
• The customers
• Investors
• …

If we follow this theory, Google, in its efforts, must satisfy all the people on this list. However, this is not the case. Google, an organization with a worldwide presence, has deceived the main category of a company that makes it what it is: customers. Indeed, we could also put in this category the shareholders who were not aware of it however, Google, with this method of data recovery, improves its technology and software which equals better performance and therefore more interesting results for the shareholders in terms of dividends at the end of the year. Customers are the most affected because they have been duped by a company they trusted. Indeed, if we have a problem, we ask Google for a solution first whether it is a health problem, a family problem, ... Google keeps our passwords, emails, ... And if they can retrieve sensitive information via our voice, we can't be sure that they won't retrieve their data by another means. If one wanted to attribute a theory to the brand, it would be Porter's 5 Forces theory, which is much more individualistic and more advantageous for the company. Indeed, in this theory, we can see the method of adaptation of a company in the face of 5 factors:

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