Business Report: Ethical Practices of Major Internet Corporations

This business report examines the ethical standards and actions of Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook. It begins with an introduction outlining the report's scope, followed by a section on public perception based on a survey of ten people, rating the companies' ethical standings. The report then delves into each company's ethical code of conduct, summarizing and comparing their policies. The analysis extends to ethical behavior, highlighting instances of unethical conduct reported against each company, such as tax avoidance, privacy violations, and anti-competitive practices. The report also addresses the Australian tax contributions of these companies. The report concludes by summarizing the ethical issues and offering recommendations for improvement, emphasizing the need for ethical conduct, manipulation prevention, software standards adherence, privacy maintenance, and third-party access limitations.

PROFESSIONAL PRATICE IN IT
Professional Practice in IT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE IN IT 1
Table of Contents
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 2
Discussion ....................................................................................................................................... 3
Thoughts of people ..................................................................................................................... 3
Ethical code ................................................................................................................................. 4
Ethical behavior .......................................................................................................................... 7
Australian Tax ............................................................................................................................. 8
Summary ......................................................................................................................................... 8
References ....................................................................................................................................... 9

PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE IN IT 2
Introduction
The aim of this business report is to focus on the actions as well as the ethical standards of
the following major companies that are as follows:
 Google: The ethical standards of Google are being profitable socially, avoiding the
reinforcement and the creation of all the unfair biases. It also consists of being constructed
as well as tested for the safety, being responsible to people, incorporation of principles for
designing privacy and upholding the higher scientific excellence standard (Bakshy,
Messing and Adamic 2015). This is constructed around the identification that each and
every thing that is done in relation of the work at Google is measured with respect to the
highest level of ethical conduct of business.
 Microsoft: The ethical standards of Microsoft comprises of the detection of the potential
issues related to compliance involves being tested by the audit and the internal groups and
is monitored by with the help of the program of compliance analytics (Brabazon 2016).
The issues are also tested by the team of controls and compliance which in turn investigates
the various concerns that gets reported by the employees. The trend is analyzed through
the Office of the Legal Compliance.
 Apple: One of the major companies Apple is accountable to the highest levels of
environmental as well as social responsibilities along with the ethical conduct. The
expectations of the company Apple for the conduct of the supplier is outlined by the ethical
standards regarding the safety and health, protection of environment, practices of
management, ethics, human rights and labor etc.
 Facebook: One of the major internet companies Facebook considers the sensitive
information of business as the most valuable asset and each and every information is kept

PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE IN IT 3
in a strict confidence and this responsibility is extended to the sensitive information of the
third parties that has been received by the users on the basis of non-revealing agreements
(Chen et al., 2015). The sensitive information of Facebook comprises of product plans,
proprietary data, pricing, plans regarding budgets, employee data which are kept safe and
secure.
Discussion
Thoughts of people
The table consists of the ratings given by ten different people on the basis of what they think about
the mentioned companies:
People Google Microsoft Apple Facebook
Person 1 9 8 10 8
Person 2 8 7 8 7
Person 3 10 9 10 9
Person 4 9 7 9 9
Person 5 8 8 9 10
Person 6 10 7 9 7
Person 7 8 7 8 8
Person 8 9 9 10 9
Person 9 9 8 7 7
Person 10 8 7 8 8

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In the above mentioned table, the ethics of the four major internet companies are rated by surveying
10 people on the basis of their thoughts regarding how much ethical is the above mentioned four
major ethical companies (Gonzalez et al., 2013). The rating rages from 1 to 10 where 1 represents
totally unethical and 10 represents being completely ethical. On an average Google and Apple are
mostly rated by most of the people on the higher scale with respect to the survey.
The previous table mentions the ratings of the major internet companies by the various
people through the survey conducted with respect to how ethical people think these companies are
(Gorelick et al., 2017). The below mentioned table focuses on the self-rating of the ethical level
of the four major internet companies.
 Self-initial ethical rating of 4 major internet companies are as follows:
Companies Google Microsoft Apple Facebook
Self-Rating 9 8 9 8
Ethical/code of conduct policies (285)
 Code of conduct of Google: The code of conduct for ethical policies of Google consists of
treating and serving the users in the best ways possible and operate in a general manner
that in turn helps in maintaining the high standards. This involves integrity, privacy,
usefulness, security along with freedom of speech, responsiveness etc. This is essential for
gaining the trust of the employees. It is also involves the equal employment opportunity
and discrimination, bullying and harassment is prohibited by the company (Greenwald,
and MacAskill 2013). It is also concerned about the workplace safety and interest conflict

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avoidance. It also consists of preserving the confidentiality and protecting its assets and
ensuring the responsibilities and financial integrity.
 Code of conduct of Microsoft: Basically three pillars are considered under the code of
conduct of Microsoft which is prevention, remediation and detection. The culture of
integrity is focused more for preventing the issues related to compliance. These issues are
detected by the method of testing by the audit group.
Last but not the least is the remediation where the root cause of all the problems is
assessed along with the methods for minimization of recurrence risk. Disciplinary actions
are faced by the employees who violate the standards of the company. The standards play
a major role in building the trust (Greenwald, and MacAskill 2013). These standards are
utilized by the employees for the understanding along with the decision making process.
This helps in building the trust and empowering the customers for bigger achievements.
 Code of conduct of Apple: The Company focuses on four main principles that results to
integrity which are compliance, confidentiality, respect and honesty. The company is
focused to higher standards of ethical conduct and responsibilities. The company believes
that an ethical workplace is essential for all the workers in the supply chain (Kross et al.,
2013). The success of the company is based on the creation of innovative services and
products of higher quality.
A code of business conduct is drafted by the company which is applied to its
numerous applications. A business conduct helpline is provided to the employees of the
company for reporting the misconduct to the audit and finance committee of the company.

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 Code of conduct Facebook: One of the major internet companies Facebook is a community
where authentic identities of the users are utilized by them. Maintaining more than one
personal account is strictly against the norms of Facebook. A personal account can be
utilized for creating and managing a page for representing business etc. (Lin et al., 2014).
A certain code is applicable to the people working in the company and if a part of code
conflicts with this code, strict actions will be taken followed by several regulations.
Comparison of the description of the policy statements with each other on the basis of certain
measures:
 From the above mentioned code of conduct of various companies, it can be an
analyzed that the ethical policy or code of conduct of Google is longest and has a
strong stand where it is concerned with serving the users in the best ways possible
along with operating in a general manner that in turn helps in maintaining the high
standards (Newman 2014). The company focuses in maintaining high standards and
gain the trust of the customers.
 The ethical policy of Microsoft has a strongest stand and is longest due to the three
pillars comprising of prevention, remediation and detection. The compliance issues
goes through all these three steps so that it can be prevented and the company can
gain the trust of the customer.
 The ethical policy of Apple consists of a strong stand due to which a single code of
business conduct is drafted by the company which is applied to its numerous
applications (Nishtala et al., 2013). A business conduct helpline is provided to the
employees of the company for reporting the misconduct to the audit and finance
committee of the company.

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 The code of conduct of Facebook is also the longest and contains strong stand as it
only allows single authorized account of each and every user. A certain code is
applicable to the people working in the company and if a part of code conflicts with
this code, strict actions will be taken followed by several regulations.
Ethical behavior
 Report of unethical conduct by Google: The ethical issues that are related to Google are
avoidance of tax, manipulation as well as misuse of the search results and utilization of the
intellectual properties of others. It also includes the violation of the privacy of people and
the collaboration with Google Earth for spying on the users.
These issues does not match with the ethical policies of the company that are
mentioned above.
 Report of unethical conduct of Microsoft: The ethical issues of Microsoft are it is subjected
to several lawsuits that brought by the various companies and by other governments. It was
accountable for locking the consumers and vendors in their products (Preis, Moat and
Stanley 2013). It was also accused of not complying or following the existing software
standards.
This ethical issues does not match with the ethical policies of the company.
 Report of ethical conduct of Apple: The ethical issues of Apple are litigation of rash,
uncompetitive behavior, dubious tactics of tax. It also comprises of dishonest corporate
policy and affairs related to finance. The issues related to the services of the customer also
involves insufficient security of data as well as misleading warranties.

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This ethical issues does not match with the ethical policies of the company.
 Report of ethical conduct of Facebook: The ethical issues of Facebook are privacy of
internet such as the presence of the like button on the websites of the third party utilized
for tracking the users, software concerned with the facial recognition done automatically
and indefinite records related to personal information of the user (Rieder 2013). This issues
totally contradicts the ethical policies or code of conduct of the company
Australian Tax
All the major internet companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft pay the
Australian tax. A fair share of tax is paid by all these major internet companies mentioned in this
report. In spite of several current disputes, AU$37 million is paid by Google in the form of
Australian tax for the year 2017 (Sinha et al., 2015). The statement of Google of 2017 made a
reconciliation on the balance sheet for the Australian tax of the previous years of an amount of
AU$221,831 even after paying an amount of Australian tax of AU$33 million a year prior to that.
In case of Microsoft, the annual report of Microsoft Australia gives an indication towards
a repatriation of a certain amount of tax. The revenue of Australian tax is surged by almost forty
percent for reaching to $1.05 billion in the end of the financial year. In case of Apple, statutory of
thirty percent of tax rate of Apple is paid by the company. The total payment accounts up to $119
million bill. The amount of Australian tax paid by Facebook is only 11.8 million.
Summary
Going by the ethical issues of the major internet companies, the companies mentioned in
this report are not that ethical as they claim to be. Major ethical issues are present in this types of

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companies. The various companies that are better than others are Amazon, Samsung etc. to name
a few. The recommendations for a better ethical would be is the search results should never be
manipulated. The existing standards of the software should always be followed. The rash litigation
should be mitigated along with the maintenance of the privacy of the internet (Verma et al., 2015).
The security of data should be maintained and the access of the third party users should also be
prohibited. After the research is done, the final ethical rating of the companies are mentioned in
the next page.
Companies Google Microsoft Apple Facebook
Self-rating 8 7 8 7
The above mentioned table contains the self- ratings on the ethical basis regarding the four major
internet companies ranging from 1 to 10 where 1 stands for completely unethical and 10 indicates
completely ethical.

PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE IN IT 10

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References
Bakshy, E., Messing, S. and Adamic, L.A., 2015. Exposure to ideologically diverse news and
opinion on Facebook. Science, 348(6239), pp.1130-1132.
Brabazon, T., 2016. The University of Google: Education in the (post) information age. Routledge.
Chen, X., Fang, H., Lin, T.Y., Vedantam, R., Gupta, S., Dollár, P. and Zitnick, C.L., 2015.
Microsoft coco captions: Data collection and evaluation server. arXiv preprint arXiv:1504.00325.
Gonzalez-Jorge, H., Riveiro, B., Vazquez-Fernandez, E., Martínez-Sánchez, J. and Arias, P., 2013.
Metrological evaluation of microsoft kinect and asus xtion sensors. Measurement, 46(6), pp.1800-
1806.
Gorelick, N., Hancher, M., Dixon, M., Ilyushchenko, S., Thau, D. and Moore, R., 2017. Google
Earth Engine: Planetary-scale geospatial analysis for everyone. Remote Sensing of Environment,
202, pp.18-27.
Greenwald, G. and MacAskill, E., 2013. NSA Prism program taps into user data of Apple, Google
and others. The Guardian, 7(6), pp.1-43.
Kross, E., Verduyn, P., Demiralp, E., Park, J., Lee, D.S., Lin, N., Shablack, H., Jonides, J. and
Ybarra, O., 2013. Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being in young adults. PloS
one, 8(8), p.e69841.
Lin, T.Y., Maire, M., Belongie, S., Hays, J., Perona, P., Ramanan, D., Dollár, P. and Zitnick, C.L.,
2014, September. Microsoft coco: Common objects in context. In European conference on
computer vision (pp. 740-755). Springer, Cham.