[yeggeyeggeyegge]

>The ability to decide whether or not a course of action is ethical is greatly affected by what your competitors are doing, groupthink, incentives, time pressures, etc.

No, its not. You do not kill a person over any of these. You do not kill someones trust in you over any of these.

>I cannot be satisfied with the run-of-the-mill, "They did it because they're evil and untrustworthy" response.

Then how about that they are shitty crappy company who are unconcerned about ethical matters of things and more concerned about what they can get away with. You know that they must have spent considerable time and effort to enable their app and service to steal all Contact data in the first place, right?

>I think simply dismissing them as untrustworthy people is an irresponsible and short-sighted reaction. Human beings are more complex than that.

irresponsible, irresponsible? What shit are you smoking chief? I have zero responsibility for their actions, or the pubic outrage against it, or my own reaction to crap. Let them rot in hell for all I care.

>convince almost any student to cheat. That's the nature of humans.

I am alarmed, you are now equating cheating under the right circumstances, to planned and intentional thieving under business as usual.

>I highly recommend reading up on basic human psychology

and I highly recommend some common sense.

[csallen]

  No, its not. You do not kill a person over any of
  these... they are shitty crappy company who are
  unconcerned about ethical matters of things

You're oversimplifying human behavior. It's not as simple as "bad people do bad things." There are COUNTLESS examples in which large groups of decent people have acted in horrifying, deplorable ways. And our psychologists know enough to reproduce this type of behavior in a lab. Read about the Milgram experiments, in which researchers were able to convince average American citizens to knowingly torture each other for almost no reason.

  I am alarmed, you are now equating cheating under
  the right circumstances, to planned and intentional
  thieving under business as usual.

Circumstances are circumstance, whether we're talking about business or school. In this particular circumstance, you have Path participating in a market where "the police" Apple simply allows this behavior to go on. And where there's tremendous social proof, because everybody else is doing it. And where there is tremendous groupthink, because the only people they consulted with were themselves. And where there was tremendous incentive, because they want their company to be successful. And where they can attempt to rationalize their decision by saying, "Well we won't use the data for anything bad" without any oversight. All the ducks are in a row. It's just the type of perfectly disastrous environment that could entice even the most noble of people to make bad decisions.

  irresponsible, irresponsible? What shit are you
  smoking chief? I have zero responsibility for their
  actions, or the pubic outrage against it, or my own
  reaction to crap. Let them rot in hell for all I care.

It's simple: Either you care more about verbally abusing people who behave poorly, or you care more about preventing poor behavior in the future. If you claim to belong to the former group then fine, keep doing what your'e doing. But it never fixed anything in the past, and it won't do so in the future. But if we want to bring about real change, then we're going to have to concentrate on the immoral systems that allow and incentivize bad behavior.

[yeggeyeggeyegge]

>You're oversimplifying human behavior

The facts in this case are simple. The judgement is clear. You seem to be justifying their actions. There is no moral justification.

>type of perfectly disastrous environment that could entice even the most noble of people to make bad decisions

see, because of this incident we can now clearly tell which companies are noble and which were pretending to be so. "ducks in a row" is not a moral argument.

>Either you care more about verbally abusing people who behave poorly, or you care more about preventing poor behavior in the future

I am sorry, it is not an either-or, and not the way you put it too. You admonish people for __bad__ behaviour because you care about preventing it in the future.

[csallen]

  You seem to be justifying their actions.
  There is no moral justification.

You can't simply assert that you are right and I am wrong. I gave you clear examples under which normal people can be influenced to do bad things. If you don't think that's possible, then cite errors in the evidence. But if you're going to simply ignore the evidence, I can't take your responses seriously. There's no point in continuing.

  because of this incident we can now clearly
  tell which companies are noble and which were
  pretending to be so.
  ...
  You admonish people for __bad__ behaviour because
  you care about preventing it in the future.

Humanity has been admonishing the immoral behavior companies/politicians/etc for millennia, and yet it still continues to this day. Appealing to morality does not work, has never worked, and never will work. Unless you fix the system, you are accomplishing nothing in the long run. What you're doing is the equivalent of blowing on a pot of boiling water to try and cool it off. Sure, it may get a degree or two colder for a few seconds. But unless you take the pot off the fire, the water will keep boiling.