Investment funds sign Net pledge
p2p news / p2pnet: Twenty-five investment funds together managing around 21 billion dollars in assets are implicitly criticizing companies such as Yahoo, Cisco Systems and Microsoft that help Communist China to censor the Net or operate online surveillance systems.
Accordingly, the companies, predominantly American, have signed a joint commitment promising to monitor the activities of internet sector companies in repressive countries, says Reporters Without Borders.
"As investors and research analysts, we recognize that our investment decisions have an impact on human rights around the world," they say, going on:
"We are therefore committed to using the tools at our disposal to uphold human rights world wide as outlined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), including freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of assembly and association, and security of persons.
The growth of the Internet offers considerable opportunities for global broad-based wealth creation.
Companies involved in providing Internet services and technology are playing a leading role in building global communities and sharing knowledge. We believe that government action to censor, monitor, isolate and jail Internet users for exercising basic human rights outlined in the UDHR threatens the ultimate realization of these benefits. We believe these actions also present significant barriers to growth for Internet sector businesses, which depend on a broadly connected, free Internet.
To help advance freedom of expression, the undersigned:
Reaffirm that freedom of expression is a universal human right that companies have an obligation to respect throughout their worldwide operations, and, in particular, in countries with a history of serious and widespread human rights violations;
Reaffirm that Internet sector businesses have a particular responsibility in this domain for a number of reasons, including the following:
Their long-term success depends on a broadly connected Internet that is free of censorship; and
Millions of people depend on their products and services for reliable access to news and information;
Recognize that, according to numerous and credible sources, a number of countries throughout the world do not tolerate public dissent and monitor and control citizens’ access to the Internet as a means of suppressing freedom of expression;
Recognize that some businesses help authorities in repressive countries to censor and mount surveillance of the Internet, and others turn a blind eye to the use made of their equipment;
State that respect for freedom of expression is a factor we consider in assessing a com pany’s social performance;
Announce that we will monitor the operations of Internet businesses in repressive regime countries tocevaluate their impact on access to news and information;
Commit ourselves to supporting, at annual general meetings of publicly listed companies, shareholdercresolutions that we believe are favorable to freedom of expression or otherwise promote the principles of vthis declaration;
Call on Internet businesses to adopt and make public ethical codes stressing their commitment to freedom of expression and defining their obligations to uphold these freedoms, and
Call on Internet businesses to make information public that will allow investors to assess how each firm is acting to ensure that its products and services are not being used to commit human rights violations (including, products and services that enable Internet censorship, surveillance and identification of dissidents)."
Of ‘ethical lapses’
"Reporters Without Borders has on several occasions condemned the ethical lapses displayed by certain Internet sector companies when operating in repressive countries," it says.
"The organisation wrote to Yahoo ! in July 2002 asking it to explain why it helps Chinese government agencies responsible for censorship. The California-based corporation has for years agreed to censor the Chinese version of its search engine so that, for example, searches for such word strings as ‘Falungong’ or ‘human rights in China’ will display content from official sources only. Reporters Without Borders also tried to get in contact with Cisco Systems, Yahoo ! and Microsoft in December 2003 in the hope of being able to talk about the consequences of their activities for freedom of expression. Our letters received no reply.
"As a result, the organisation investigated other ways of getting its views across. It got in touch with investment funds which are existing or potential shareholders in these companies. Boston Common Asset Management, a US investment company that practices Socially Responsible Investment (SRI), agreed right away to look at the issue. It was joined soon afterwards by Domini Social Investment. These two investment companies began by writing to Cisco Systems chief executive John Chambers to request more transparency about the type of equipment and training programmes his company has sold to China in the past 10 years. Many statements and documents indicate that Cisco Systems has provided the Chinese police with technology that allows it to censor the Internet and monitor people while online. But this request was also ignored. Boston Common and Domini then decided to draw up a shareholder resolution in which they reiterate they request for information about Cisco’s activities in countries that are known to flout freedom of expression. This resolution will be voted on at the next general meeting of the company’s shareholders on 15 November.
"While pleased with this initiative, Reporters Without Borders wanted to go further and get other investment firms and business analysts to take a stand on the issue. So, together with Boston Common and Domini, it drafted a “Joint Statement on Freedom of Expression and the Internet.” The signatories affirm that respect for free expression is one of the criteria they will take into account when deciding where to invest. They add that they will step up their monitoring of Internet sector companies whose business activities have an impact on the free flow of information online. And they also undertake to support resolutions favouring free expression that are presented at shareholders’ meetings."
RWB says it hopes the declaration is just the start and that other investment firms will join.
But it, "deplores the lack of interest shown by European socially responsible investment companies, of which so far only one has agreed to sign," ading:
"Reporters Without Borders points out that this statement is not just targeted at Yahoo !, Microsoft and Cisco Systems. There has been a great deal of comment of late about such cases as the Chinese journalist, Shi Tao, who got a 10-year prison sentence on the basis of information supplied by Yahoo !, and Microsoft’s agreeing to censor the Chinese version of its MSN Spaces blog tool. But other companies participate in online censorship and surveillance in China. Google, for example, decided in July 2004 to exclude any “subversive” website from the Chinese version of its news search engine.
"Finally, this statement’s cope is not limited to just China. It could, for example, also apply to Fortinet, the company that installed Internet filters for the Burmese junta, or Secure Computing, which did the same in Tunisia."
Signed up are:
USA
- Boston Common Asset Management LLC
- Domini Social Investments LLC
- Trillium Asset Management
- Walden Asset Management
- Citizens Advisers, Inc
- Calvert Group, Ltd
- Harrington Investments, Inc
- Joyce Moore Financial Services
- NorthStar Asset Management, Inc
- KLD Research & Analytics, Inc
- Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia
- Dominican Sisters of Springfield, IL
- As You Sow Foundation
- CorpGov.net
- MMA
- Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul of New York
- Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers
- Dominican Sisters of Hope
- Mercy Investment Program
- Sisters of Mercy Regional Community of Detroit
- Ursuline Sisters of Tildonk
Canada
- Jantzi Research Inc
- The Ethical Funds Company
Switzerland
- Fondation Ethos (Switzerland)
Stay tuned.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
Reporters Without Borders – Investment funds and analysts to monitor what Internet firms do in repressive countries, November 8, 2005
November 8th, 2005 at 7:06 pm
Oh, common. Tree-hugging practices applied to a hi-tech, how cute.
November 8th, 2005 at 7:36 pm
Let’s not forget to add Verso Technologies of Atlanta, GA to that list. They are trying very hard to trash VoIP on a worldwide basis, especially for repressive totalitarian regimes like the People Republic of China.
–TurboGeek
November 8th, 2005 at 7:50 pm
The problem with the Multinational Corporate “Capitalism” is that the companies that practice it believe that in order for them to profit, someone has to lose. What these businesses do not realize is that they are hurting the very people that they depend on. When they hurt those who keep them in business, they eventually lose out. When corporations support repression, censorship, and slavery, this does the following:
1. It turns off consciencious customers from using their service. I no longer use any of Yahoo’s “services.”
2. In the case of companies using slave labor, this drains the incomes of customers in “wealthier” nations. The customers will eventually no longer have money to buy their product.
3. In cases of repression and censorship, customers who are affected will ususally have no choice but to go other routes to get the information that they want. These methods incude p2p, FreeWan, Sneakernet, and other ways. I would rather download articles from these services than use the likes of Yahoo.
Once the multinational corporations wipe out or alienate their workers and or customer base, who will they depend on for their money supply? The multinational corporations are just beginning to reap what they have sowed. They keep complaining that sales are down. Well, that is because the Burger King jobs that people have to take pay no where as near as what manufacturing jobs that were exported (by same companies) paid.
The companies that are listed in the article most likely realize that it is best to be honest. I would not invest in a company that will eventually destroy itself because it does not look out for the people that make business possible. The multinationals that have been extorting money in the “Sue Them All” campaign have definitly alienated me because of their bullying and overpriced stuff. I no longer patronize them. Not only that, I show people who just have to have their crap how to use peer to peer software as well as FreeWan.
If ethical business practice is considered tree hugging, then I am going to find a nice big oak
November 8th, 2005 at 9:22 pm
While I commend the organisations participating in this project, I cannot help feeling they are rather naive. They feel that selling tech to some devil is a new thing. IBM sold tech equipment to the Nazis 65 years ago. It will never change. Doesnt make it right, but its nothing new.
November 9th, 2005 at 8:19 am
Ethics is a very subjective thing.