I’ve had a few posts recently that revolve around multi-national technology giant Google, both for positive and negative reasons, and today’s news has once again brought the company right into the ethical spotlight. An Italian judge has convicted three Google executives and given each a six-month suspended sentence because of a video of an autistic boy being bullied that was uploaded onto Google’s video service in 2006.
What do we want to be?
Tag Archive: ethics
Should homeopathic treatments be state funded?
There’s been some recent controversy in the UK these past couple of days over whether or not homeopathic treatments should be eligible for payment through the National Health Service (NHS). As it currently stands, the government does acknowledge that there is no evidence backing the validity of such treatments; however at the same time allowing for them to be paid for through the state-backed NHS system.
Does Google profit from ‘typo-squatters’?
I found this fascinating article over at New Scientist, which looks at projections on how much Google might be earning from typo-squatters – those annoying people who buy up wrongly spelled domain names in order to make a quick buck.
Chip-and-PIN security flaw highlights blind faith in technology
This is an interesting type of story that we hear about in mainstream media every now and then – and that is the finding of security weaknesses in widespread technology, particularly those that deal with financial transactions of one kind or another. This time around, it’s flaws in the Chip-and-PIN technology that is widely used in credit and debit cards throughout Europe and particularly the UK.
Will Google abandon China?
Over the past week a pivotal standoff has been occurring between the world’s largest supplier of information and the world’s largest censor of information. The Google vs. China conflict has been gaining momentum over recent years, and it has all come to a head in the last few days over alleged hacker attacks on human rights activists email accounts – with Google refusing to censor its findings within China for a few days, and even talk of the company removing its enterprise from the country altogether.
Relief needed for Haiti
It’s always with great sadness that a call-out for relief and aid needs to be made after a catastrophic event, and the recent earthquake disaster in Haiti is no different. Haiti is a country that has inspired me in many different ways, so I wanted to use today’s post to highlight the very real need for charitable donations and help for the millions that have been affected by this disaster.
10 sectors to watch over the next decade (part 3)
Now that we’re onto part three, I wanted to bring up two more sectors that we’ve focused quite a lot on here at Future Conscience. They are sectors that the first decade of the 21st century really proved the validity of, and solidified both of them as central to our collective vision of future society.
10 sectors to watch over the next decade
To mark the end of 2009 and the beginning of the new upcoming decade, I wanted to bring you a series of posts that will look at the sectors of knowledge, technology and human progress that are going to see some astounding changes throughout the upcoming years. These sectors will be at the forefront of what will be seen as progress, and will more than likely change our lives so drastically that we will have difficulty reconciling the new existence with the one that we are currently living within.
Recognising UN International Anti-Corruption Day
Today is the UN International Anti-Corruption Day, an annual event that has been happening since 2003 in an attempt to shed light on corporate and government corruption in its many forms. The day is intended to raise awareness about corruption and also to highlight the role of the United Nations Convention against Corruption.
Copenhagen summit hit by new ‘Danish Text’ leak controversy
We’re only two days into the two week long Copenhagen summit and another controversial document has been leaked that is causing negotiations to falter at this early stage. Earlier we had the ‘ClimateGate’ scandal in relation to the series of emails that were released by some unknown hackers, and today comes words of a new leaked document that is highlighting a prejudice towards richer countries against developing ones.
