Planet Business

Other business news in brief

Dictionary Corner

"Top Kill"

“Top kill” is BP’s latest attempt to plug the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico where, despite the diligent efforts of underwater robots, black plumes are still pumping into the ocean. Nothing to do with the imminent fate of BP chief executive Tony Hayward, “top killing” involves throwing a mixture of mud and cement called “kill mud” into the leaky oil well and praying that it chokes the pipes. It’s basic plumbing on a mind-boggling scale, where the penalty for failure is the wrath of the US president and even more sickening pollution.

1,519

– the number of new reports and complaints received by the Office for the Director of Corporate Enforcement last year.

Status Update

Gone viral:Identity chips implanted into humans can pick up computer viruses, says Reading University researcher Mark Gasson, who has given his own chip a bug.

Ale for sale:Drinks giant Anheuser Busch InBev have put Bass, the oldest registered trademark in the UK, on the market for £10-£15 million, if anyone's buying.

The bigger Apple:Apple overtook Microsoft to become the worlds biggest technology company, after choppy movements in their share prices on Wednesday.

“I’ve been at this company 16 months. I’m supposed to have an iPod, an iPad, an iBlah.”

Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz rues expectations that she can turn the company around overnight.

The Question

Is it ethical for recruiters to spy on the Facebook pages of job candidates?

After an almighty bout of “that awkward feeling when you realise everyone thinks you’re a megalomaniac”, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has been forced to simplify Facebook’s privacy settings – an event that has sparked another round of anecdotes about which companies fired which employees for Facebook-related stupidity. But is it right for employers to be spying on employees in the first place?

There seems to be precious little sympathy in cyber-sacking cases, where employees document their “sickies” with an alcohol-themed photo album or get caught bitching about their bosses or (as in the Virgin case) their customers.

So what about employers who trawl through social networking sites when they are deciding whom they want to hire? Internet ethics gurus have pointed to the unnerving scenario where a conservative recruiter rejects job candidates after discovering via Facebook that their political affiliations are socialist (or vice versa).

There are all kinds of reasons why people opt for relatively low privacy settings on their Facebook pages (other than being swayed into doing so by the highly open default settings), yet judging from the endless warnings on the matter, it seems recruiters can’t help themselves when it comes to digital spying.

It is a rather scary assumption that people behave the same way outside the workplace as they do inside of it – and an even scarier one still that they actually should.