Article
Debating human rights in the IT industry [USA]
Despite concerns of "rightswashing" by some activists in attendance, a great number of corporate speakers acknowledged the need for greater consideration of human rights. Among them was Bob Boorstin, director of Public Policy for Google, who admitted: "while some companies are doing their best to protect human rights, most are not," noting that "Google does not have a spotless record"...While some companies, like Google, have enshrined within their corporate values human rights principles, others will only be incentivised by economic arguments, such as those companies providing surveillance and censorship technologies...The conference ended...with the release of a set of standards targeted at the Information and Communications Technology industry...While standards can be a force for good, particularly when coupled with a multi-stakeholder approach, they’re not always enough. [refers to Amazon, Facebook, PayPal (part of eBay), Yonja Media Group, BlueCoat , Cisco, Amesys (part of Bull), AT&T, HP, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Evoca]