Suppose you own a travel company that arranges adventure trips for groups. You start a social networking site for promoting your trips. In Web 2.0 style, you want people who have taken your trips to post the pictures and comments on the site. Al, who is 15 years old and wants to be taken as more grown than he is, posts a picture of a handsome 22-year-old male as a picture of himself and claims to play the guitar and be an accomplished chef. He also writes witty comments on the site. Suppose someone decided to go on one of the trips in part because of Al's postings and was disappointed in the trip and when they learned the truth about Graham.

a.     Is what Al did ethical? On what basis are you making that decision.

b.     Is the company liable for what Al did? Are they ethically obligated to refund that person's fees?

 

2.     Is this ethical for the company to encourage employees to write positive reviews about trips on the site?

a.     What if they wrote about trips that they had been on? 

 

3.     Suppose you pay your employees a bonus for every person the employee gets to purchase a trip. Without any encouragement from you and without your knowledge, one of your employees gets ambitious and invites his friends to a party in which he will show pictures from previous trips. On the way to the party, one of the friends gets in a car wreck and dies. His spouse sues your company.

a.     Is your company liable?

b.     Would it matter if you know about the party ahead of time?

 

4.     On one of your trips out of dozens, despite your best efforts, some bad food was served and everyone became ill because of food poisoning. One of those people goes on your site and posts a scathing review of the trip and your company. Other members of the trip write supporting messages. 

a.     Would it be a good idea to delete the posts? Why?

b.     How should you respond to this event?