[freehunter]

And that "ethical business" would either cease to exist due to more profitable companies eating them up or would have their shareholders force the benevolent board of directors out of the company and they would go where the profits were anyway.

Companies cannot be ethical or unethical. They exist for no other reason than to make money.

[ZoFreX]

> or would have their shareholders force the benevolent board of directors out of the company and they would go where the profits were anyway

This is an oft-repeated misconception on Hacker News but shareholders don't have absolute power, profit is not the sole or most important driver of business decisions, and it absolutely is possible to run an ethical, publically-listed company.

[hrjet]

How do you know? Perhaps there are shareholders who would laud the CEO for his stance and make him CEO for life. Perhaps the goodwill will fetch a lot of customers and revenue.

[k-mcgrady]

>> "Companies cannot be ethical or unethical. They exist for no other reason than to make money."

The people running them can be ethical. If the CEO does not like these practices he can speak publicly about it and name the countries involved.

[freehunter]

Something tells me you didn't read all of my post. If the CEO is doing something that the shareholders don't like, the...

>shareholders (could) force the benevolent board of directors out of the company and they would go where the profits were anyway

[k-mcgrady]

I did read it. My point was more about the CEO's personal Ethics. Does he value his job so much that he won't risk it at the expense of the countries getting away with huge privacy violations? If he publicly shamed these countries, was fired and the company continued to follow these laws maybe they would lose customers and it would negatively hurt their image and actually be worse for profits.

[Infinitesimus]

... and then the CEO would be displaced by someone whose interest aligns with the interests of those pushing programs like these in the first place - because they have the money/tools of power to skew things in their favor.