As everyone has heard, the new establishment of Wikileaks has governments worried. Yet they are not the only ones who are becoming nervous with the new development of the whistle-blowing website. As the Economist article goes into detail about how, "businesses were struck by an alarming thought: even if this threat proves empty, commercial secrets are no longer safe." Coorperate transactions have already been listed on the site including the post which was, a " leaked internal report from Trafigura, a commodities giant, discussing a hazardous waste spill in Côte d’Ivoire." Another instance which effected companies was, "In January 2008 the site released stolen documents from Julius Baer, a Swiss bank, including bank records of about 1,600 clients with accounts at a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands. The bank sued to stop WikiLeaks publishing the documents, but then dropped the suit."
With companies now having their secrets brought forth, how will they be able to operate when their main operations are now open for public display.
3 comments:
The increased transparency from Wikileaks can certainly be bad like in instances where bank records are leaked, but it can also be helpful to keep businesses accountable, like in instances where hazardous waste spills are made public. Whistle-blowing on polluting companies isn't nearly as scary as releasing state secrets that could inadvertently expose contacts and endanger lives.
I agree, I think it is good that companies are being held more accountable because of these leaks and it is good that those who have acted in a corrupt manner now are seeing consequences.
I also agree. I was very disturbed when reports on wiki leaks letting out state secrets, and even more upset when these leaks led to instability and hurt relationships between countries - obviously not helping.
But watching corporations seems to be an overall good idea.
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