Current Insight Community Cases

Essential Datacenter Tips On Application Performance Monitoring

The Importance Of Skilled Immigrants To The American Economy

Help A New Kind of Music Label Revolutionize The Industry

Mandates To Buy American Should Be More Carefully Considered

Navigating The New Business World After This Recession

Check out our CwF + RtB experiment.
Brought to you by Floor64 and the Techdirt crew.

stories filed under: "message boards"
(Mis)Uses of Technology

(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
executives, message boards

Companies:
whole foods



Whole Foods Board Decides Common Sense Ain't Common Enough: Bans Execs From Web Postings

from the common-sense-ain't-what-it-used-to-be dept

Over the summer, there was some press coverage over the news that the CEO of Whole Foods had, for years, been posting to Yahoo message boards about his company under a fake name. It doesn't look like he did anything illegal, but it was certainly questionable from an ethical standpoint. Whole Foods' board has now responded by changing the company's "code of conduct" to ban execs from posting to non-company-sponsored web forums about company related news. In other words, the board felt the need to basically put what should be common sense into its code of conduct. Of course, the easy retort is that it clearly wasn't common sense to the CEO who engaged in it, but one would think with the ongoing SEC investigation he'd now be pretty aware of this fact, and changing the company's code of conduct is unlikely to have much of an impact.

21 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Stupidity

Stupidity

by Joseph Weisenthal


Filed Under:
message boards

Companies:
whole foods



Whole Foods CEO Caught In Embarrassing Message Board Brouhaha

from the mackey dept

The FTC's decision to oppose Whole Foods' acquisition of Wild Oats is the result of a misguided and myopic definition of what constitutes the relevant market. And while many expect Whole Foods to ultimately prevail, the proceedings have been unpleasant for the company's CEO, John Mackey. First it was revealed that Mackey championed the merger, in part because he believed that by taking Wild Oats out of play, it would prevent another supermarket chain from quickly becoming a Whole Foods rival. That may or may not be damning (from an antitrust perspective), but a new revelation will prove to be far more embarrassing. As part of its latest legal filing, the FTC dropped the bombshell that John Mackey had, for several years, been posting on the the Yahoo Finance message boards under a pseudonym, cheerleading his company's success and denigrating its rival, Wild Oats. He even made predictions about the company's stock price, putting out extremely high estimates for its performance. It's not clear that what he did was necessarily illegal, but his posting seems unethical and highly foolish, at the very least. If nothing else, the company's stockholders should wonder about what the boss is doing with his time.

33 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
Search Techdirt
And now, a word from our Sponsors..



Popular Posts
Poll

Which Internet Concern Worries You The Most?

 

 

 

 

 

 


Add Techdirt RSS To Your Reader
rss Add Techdirt to your Bloglines
Add Techdirt to your Google Add Techdirt to your My Yahoo
Add Techdirt to your Netvibes Add Techdirt to your Newsgator
Subscribe to Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Techdirt's Daily Email Newsletter

Older Stuff

Tuesday

5:00am: Once Again, If The Gov't Has Data, It Will Be Abused (42)
2:53am: As Expected, Social Networking Generation Running For Office Face Their Permanent Record Online (31)
12:55am: IMAX Sues Cinemark For Building Competing System... While Being An IMAX Customer (14)

Monday

10:26pm: Filmmaker Allowed To Use The Name Rin Tin Tin To Describe Rin Tin Tin (6)
8:25pm: Senators Begin Questioning ACTA Secrecy (32)
6:34pm: Brazil E-Voting Machines Not Hacked... But Van Eck Phreaking Allowed Hacker To Record Votes (15)
5:08pm: FCC Doesn't Think The Lack Of Competition Is A Major Barrier To Broadband? (36)
3:49pm: Heads Of Major Movies Studios Claiming They Just Want To Help Poor Indie Films Harmed By Piracy (47)
2:38pm: USPTO Convinced By Amazon That Online Gift Giving Patent Is Legit (19)
1:31pm: Tiburon Approves Recording Every Car That Enters/Leaves... Despite More Evidence Of Traffic Camera Abuse In UK (86)
12:18pm: Label Exec Arrested For Not Using Twitter To Disperse Crowd At Mall To See Singer (53)
11:01am: Spanish Court Dismisses Complaint From Nintendo Against Counterfiet DS Cartridges, Since They Add Functionality (12)
9:55am: Dear PR People: If Your Exec Has A Comment, Our Comments Are Open (25)
8:44am: What Kind Of Mickey Mouse (And Donald Duck) Lawsuits Are These? (23)
7:30am: Prosecutors Ending Lawsuit Against Lori Drew (13)
6:06am: Dear Rupert: You Don't Succeed By Making Life More Difficult For Users (70)
4:20am: ESPN Writer Suspended From Twitter (59)
2:10am: School Can't Handle Critical Community Message Board; Sends Legal Nastygram (21)

Friday

7:39pm: Liberian Laws Are A Secret Due To Copyright; Even The Gov't Doesn't Have Them (43)
6:56pm: Lily Allen: It's Ok To Sell My Counterfeit CDs, Just Don't Give My Music For Free (97)
6:10pm: EFF Looks To Bust Bogus Podcasting Patent; Needs Prior Art (34)
5:28pm: Google Blocking Set Top Boxes From Showing YouTube Unless They Pay Up? (64)
4:44pm: Entertainment Industry: Yes, Please Keep Negotiating Secret Copyright Treaty To Save Our Asses (43)
4:02pm: If Google's Book Scanning Violates Copyright Law, What About The AP's Book Scanning? (21)
3:05pm: iPhone App Developer Backlash Growing (49)
2:14pm: Norwegian Band Told It Can't Post Its Own Music To The Pirate Bay, Even Though It Wants To (24)
1:08pm: If You Only Share A Tiny Bit Of A File Via BitTorrent, Is It Still Copyright Infringement? (79)
12:00pm: UK Digital Economy Bill As Bad As Expected; Digital Britain Minister Flat Out Lies About ISP Support (25)
10:57am: NPR's Daniel Schorr Blames The Internet For Ft. Hood Shootings (37)
9:49am: No, ACTA Secrecy Is Not 'Normal' -- Nor Is It A 'Distraction' (29)
More arrow
Quick Links
Close
E-mail It