Julian Assange: Pariah to E-Commerce
In the run up to the arrest of Julian Assange, large companies, including Amazon, Visa and Paypal, refused to continue doing business with WikiLeaks, saying the site and its staff had violated various terms of service. Being dropped has meant WikiLeaks has had to change its online domain name, source its documents from a different web hosting company, and, accept donations via methods other than credit cards. Was this tightening of the noose business as usual or an unethical over-use of corporate power?
In this conversation with Wired Magazine writer Ryan Siegel and business ethics consultant Lauren Bloom, we discuss whether or not these companies responded responsibly to charges levied against the WikiLeaks organization; or, if they acted in effect like an extra-legal, multi-national arm of state enforcement.
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