Microsoft Wins 'Most Ethical' Award--Google, Facebook, Apple Don't Make The List

Ethisphere has rated Microsoft among the most ethical companies in the world, a distinction not granted to tech giants Apple, Facebook or even "don't be evil" Google.

According to the Ethisphere Institute, "the World's Most Ethical Company designation is awarded to those companies that have leading ethics and compliance programs, particularly as compared to their industry peers."

This list of decidedly reputable companies spans a wide range of industries, including computer software, food stores, telecom services, banking and aerospace. Companies are evaluated based on corporate citizenship and responsibility, corporate governance, innovation that contributes to the public well being, industry leadership, and several other categories.

"Microsoft started to make a big 'corporate citizenship' push in the early 2000s following the negative fallout from its antitrust trials, and has since donated millions to non-profits, invested in programs for economic development, and tightened up its internal reporting processes. All of this was apparently enough to get the company on the list this year," writes Business Insider.

This year, Ethisphere honored 110 companies with its do-gooder award. eBay, Adobe Systems and Whole Food Market also qualified. As noted by Forbes, this list is not a ranking system, and all companies are considered equal.

Litigation and ethics violations generally keep companies off the list, according to Ethisphere. CNET reports that Google has made the World's Most Ethical list in the past, but that it may have been passed over this year because of the European Union's antitrust investigation against the company. Google also faces antitrust scrutiny from the U.S. government.

Visit Ethisphere's website to view all 110 of the World's Most Ethical Companies.

Comments

[rbil49]

10:44 AM on 03/23/2011

Is this the same group that awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama?

[JuanGuapo]

11:20 AM on 03/22/2011

People love to hate Microsoft for the same reason they love to "love" Apple.

They don't know why. They have no stake in either company. They just know that Apple is good and Microsoft is evil.

[Eagleman]

11:34 PM on 03/20/2011

microsoft screwed enough companies to get to where they are now....

[Tobby2k9]

01:28 PM on 03/20/2011

Bill: take that Steve IN YOUR FACEEEEE

Steve: so what I just released the iPad 2

[imajoebob]

01:15 AM on 03/20/2011

"Greenwashing." They've paid a pantload of money to cover up a history as the likeliest LEAST ethical company of the past 30 or 40 years. it also helps that they don't have any products to compete in new markets, so it's a lot harder to engage in unethical behavior when no one cares about you.

[waldopepper]

10:53 PM on 03/20/2011

On the button.

[hagagaga]

12:25 AM on 03/21/2011

The least ethical company would be Monsanto or Halliburton.

[imajoebob]

08:15 PM on 03/21/2011

I'd argue that Halliburton can justly be called the most immoral (not even amoral) company, but not the most unethical. Maybe it's semantics, but Halliburton doesn't try to hide the fact that it's a scum factory. Gates always tried to portray MS as an upstanding corporate citizen and bastion of cyber creativity, when it was really more a den of thieves that would sell their own grandmother a box of coal and call them "beta diamonds."

[Lordcron]

04:26 PM on 03/19/2011

Now that could spell the end of Microsoft because everyone know you can't have ethics and run a business. You have to be able to put a man out of his house and on the streets and starve some poor innocent children in the process in order to build a successful company these days! LOL!

[KarateKid]

10:11 AM on 03/19/2011

Yeah, Ethisphere, tell that to WordPerfect Corp., Netscape, and whole slew of companies Microsoft ruthlessly crushed.

What a joke this organization is.

[Skaterx999]

03:55 PM on 03/19/2011

They're talking about MS now, not everything MS has ever done.

[ykk9]

07:32 PM on 03/19/2011

What did MS do to WordPerfect corp?

[EdgarAllen]

09:07 PM on 03/19/2011

Produced better software?

[democratsaint]

10:31 PM on 03/20/2011

made windows run wordperfect slower than word, the main reason it took over wp as wordprocessor of choice.once it was out of the way office prices jumped.

[Proxy11]

10:15 PM on 03/18/2011

Sometime in the next week or so, something called the Ethisphere Institute is scheduled to announce this year's list of the "World's Most Ethical Companies." If past years are any indication, the winners will have their press releases ready to go, and news outlets across the country will eat it up. There's just one hitch: These ethics awards—let's call them the Ethies—may have ethics issues of their own.

The Ethisphere Insitute, which describes itself as "a leading international think-tank dedicated to the creation, advancement and sharing of best practices in business ethics, corporate social responsibility, anti-corruption and sustainability," is actually a for-profit company. The institute also lends itself credibility with an "advisory panel" of ethicists, yet several former members say they've had little if anything to do with it. Finally, the institute and an affiliated company sell services to and collect fees from some of the same companies Ethisphere extols.

http://www.slate.com/id/2248033/

[Proxy11]

10:17 PM on 03/18/2011

Nice job researching Catharine Smith.

[reddog55]

11:29 AM on 03/19/2011

Sound like one of those Who's Who companies I get every now and then. For $29.95 you can get your name in the Who's Who of Potato Pickers :) I imagine the fees are a little higher for someone like MS though :))

[Jonathan Sands]

05:41 PM on 03/18/2011

In The Principles of Fighting, Sweet shows how Microsoft achieved its elephantine success: through Gates's emulation of Napoleon, through his fighting well. Microsoft is ethical only to the degree that Napoleon was ethical...

[whowhatwhywherewhen]

11:33 AM on 03/18/2011

Of course facebook didn't make the list.

[dmsdzinr]

07:56 AM on 03/18/2011

Most Ethical? And yet Microsoft continues to put out software and Operating Systems, year after year, that don't work and are plagued by quirks, hiccups, worms and viruses.

[MaxPowerXP]

10:42 AM on 03/18/2011

Congratulations on one of the dumbest assertions ever posted here.

[dmsdzinr]

10:47 AM on 03/18/2011

Coming from a Microsoft User, I take your attack as a badge of honor!

[Pete59]

07:18 PM on 03/18/2011

I would have thought providing employment is very ethical (pity it is in the black economy, of fraud and theft).

[ballewb]

11:36 AM on 03/18/2011

They work just as well as Apple products. I use both Apple and MS. They both function and they both have points of aggravation. They both have their strong and weak points. I prefer MS. Big Deal. Windows 7 is gorgeous, does not crash any more often than the Mac OS, and has a great deal more 3rd party software. On mobile platforms, again I have use Apple and MS products.

I prefer Windows Phone 7 to iPhone. Both are smart phones for dummies, anyway.

Big deal.

[dmsdzinr]

12:13 PM on 03/18/2011

Well I am NOT a GAMER. So I use the Mac as a CREATIVE TOOL. The MAC OS has PC Operating Systems and Software BEAT Hands Down for Creativity. Hey, to each his own. Whatever works for you.

[slocomgp]

02:52 PM on 03/19/2011

I have been on a MacBook OS for over two years, for work and play. Never, literally never crashed or locked up.

[HeartlandLiberal]

06:57 AM on 03/18/2011

Nonsense. Back during the period when Microsoft was being threatened by anti-trust action from Congress, they had paid lobbyists roaming the halls of Congress carrying buckets of chits for loads of money. It was a clear indication that even then, 10 years ago, the corporations with the money were buying and owning Congress.

[SirHenryClinton]

04:13 AM on 03/18/2011

Even if we forget the April, 2000 judgment in US v Microsoft that found them an "abusive monopoly", the 2004 and 2007 EU judgments, or the corruption of the Java standard... there is still a potentially catastrophic danger posed to our national infrastructure (i.e. power grids, rail systems, airlines, financial, medical data systems) from poorly designed software rushed to market that allows exploitation by cyber criminals. OK, show of hands, how many of you have had a virus or other malware on your PC.

In Richard A. Clarke's recent book Cyber War, Clarke discuss the extensive thefts of countless military and industrial secrets by cyber espionage. He reveals "Microsoft insiders have admitted to me that the company really did not take security seriously..." America faces a very real danger if security vulnerabilities are exploited in, say, a US nuclear plant by a terrorist organization of hostile government. Clarke observes "Microsoft went one the warpath against Linux to slow the adoption of it by government agencies..." Way to go Microsoft, so very patriotic, so very ethical.

[ZeraLee]

06:54 AM on 03/18/2011

I have to fan someone who knows their computer history. The way they used up employees, shipped jobs offshore, introduced chaos into html, fought the Open Document standards...

Looks like they finally bought respectability.

I have always thought that the need to see code behind an API was a sure sign of an incompetently engineered interface. An opinion that seems supported by their inability to document their APIs to the court's satisfaction. Or did they finally succeed? I lost track after the first several years.

[MaxPowerXP]

10:44 AM on 03/18/2011

Sorry, I realized you had nothing of value to say from the moment you started blabbering about the completely idiotic anti-trust judgements.

[DaneAZ]

03:29 AM on 03/18/2011

Well this sure goes to show how SHORT the public's memory can be.

Circus people all of 'em.

[YOKEL13]

12:45 AM on 03/18/2011

It seems as though Microsoft has had antitrust issues of its own.