Virtual Business: Play Fair Online

Businesses are no longer using the internet as just a valuable tool; it’s now becoming an integral component in the way they conduct their operations. Perhaps motivated by the Whole Foods scandal (CEO John Mackey used his false identity, or sockpuppet, to badmouth rival Wild Oats online) IBM recently created a set of Netiquette guidelines to regulate how employees act and interact in the virtual world Second Life. The rules dictate that employees should consider the virtual world, well, virtually the same as the real world. (It’s got gambling, porn and terrorism. How much more real can you get?) Workers must respect other people’s privacy, avoid discussing intellectual property, and “build a reputation of trust.”You may wonder how anything whimsical enough to be named a sockpuppet could be bad for business. Or maybe you don’t see the need for rules in a virtual world peopled by avatars, like flying zombies. In light of recent events, someone needs to set some boundaries. After all, it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye — or a multi-million dollar merger.