Michael Arrington’s Ethics 101 Class
July 15th, 2009 by John LynchYesterday, Arrington’s TechCrunch announced it was posting internal documents from Twitter sent to the online publication via an online hacker. TechCrunch has stated while they do not intend to publish the highly sensitive or “embarrassing” documents, they “are going to publish some of the other information that is relevant to Twitter’s business, particularly product notes and financial projections,” noted Arrington in a blog post yesterday.
What TechCrunch is doing is not just unethical, it’s illegal. Knowingly purchasing* stolen property and using it for profit is criminal and I truly hope they are prosecuted.
Online publications such as TechCrunch need to be held accountable for the information they choose to disseminate. Let’s not confuse this with muckraking or whistle blowing; this is gawking at stolen property to generate ad revenue and incoming links for search purposes.
What’s more bewildering is Arrington’s weak attempt to defend his decision to publish the content. Astonishingly, the primary image used in the post reads “Ethics 101. ” Arrington writes, “I feel bad for Twitter and I wish this had never happened. But it did happen and the documents are out there and they are going to be published somewhere on the Internet.”
Translation: If some scummy publication is going to publish this scoop, might as well be us!
Arrington then attempts to justify the decision by citing instances in which WSJ and Gawker posted a Yahoo Internal Memo and Sarah Palin’s email info respectively. In Arrington’s world, it’s not a crime if two or more people commit it. This argument is so ridiculous that I can’t possibly imagine Michael Arrington actually believes what he wrote. This begs the question: Did Arrington write this post in self defense or merely to further fuel discussion? I would guess the latter.
It’s important to prosecute so as to protect the private, proprietary information of individuals and corporations. In my opinion, it’s no worse than breaking into a home, stealing a bank account statement, and publishing it online under the guise of public interest.
*note: TechCrunch has not confirmed they purchased the material, but it is extremely likely that the hacker sold the material for profit.
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I wholeheartedly agree. Arrington is turning techcrunch into a tabloid by using illegally obtained info to generate revenue. By creating pubicity for this hacker, he’s encouraging this sort of behavior. It’s like the papparazzi that get paid for the candid shots of celebs private moments. Using the justification that it’s been done before, or that if he doesn’t do it, someone else will is ridiculous. I wrote something for my own company similar to yours http://bit.ly/20GxT – but yours really hits the nail on the head. I sincerely hope to see TechCrunch prosecuted for this.