Given recent high-profile corporate misdemeanors, is it time for business ethics to make a comeback?

Following on from the last blog on the importance of rebuilding trust in our leading companies, I saw an interesting news item this week on tech hardware firm Belkin who, it is alleged, has been paying users to give its products glowing five-star reviews.

Naturally, Belkin rushed to distance itself from the actions, with President Mark Reynoso quick to respond:

“...it was with great surprise and dismay that we discovered one of our employees may have posted a number of queries on the Amazon Mechanical Turk website inviting users to post positive reviews of Belkin products in exchange for payment... Belkin does not participate in, nor does it endorse, unethical practices like this. We know that people look to online user reviews for unbiased opinions from fellow users and instances like this challenge the implicit trust that is placed in this interaction. We regard our responsibility to our user community as sacred, and we are extremely sorry that this happened.”

As Reynoso points out, user reviews are all about trust, and despite Belkin’s apology the news is likely to severely dent consumers’ confidence – not only in his company, but also in all user reviews. Given that such reviews are now a ‘must have’ for any internet retailing website and are even beginning to cross channels to provide help for consumers trying to decide which product to buy in-store, it displays not only crass stupidity on the part of the people involved, but also a huge lack of respect for the buying public.

Of course, unscrupulous companies pulling the wool over the eyes of consumers is nothing new, but such a high-profile case does come at a time when corporations are already in the spotlight regarding their behavior.

So given the plethora of corporate misdemeanours filling the front pages in recent months, is it time for consumers to demand a new code of business ethics? What would a new standard of business accountability look like? And where would we even begin?