Business Law I Project 2

Report Introduction Ethics can be defined as the study and practice of decisions about what is good or right and business ethics is defined as the use of ethics and ethical principles to solve business dilemmas (Kubasek et al., 2020). Ethics is comparable to law because ethics are a set of moral values that one sets for themselves whereas laws are a set of rules laid out for society to follow collectively. If the law and/or ethics are broken, there are likely to be consequences in whatever the situation might have been. Not only do corporate and retail businesses have a responsibility to act ethically, but the professionals that work for those companies have the same obligations. Within the executive or hierarchy of companies, managers are often interacting with employees who are subject to a set of professional codes of conduct. It is important for anyone who is apart of any company to always remain ethical and conduct themselves professionally to ensure the best possible outcomes of the organization. Analysis The ethical issues presented in the situation of Mountain Top view include Steve’s failure to inform the managers and customers of the data breach. In order for Steve to have acted ethically, he should have immediately told Clare and Carlos about the situation instead of just taking it upon himself and fixing the problem before others knew about it. Even though Steve was not at fault for the breach, it could have easily looked like he did play a role simply due to his quick actions of covering up the situation without informing management. The legal issues that could have transpired in this situation are that the customers who had their data compromised could have filed a lawsuit or multiple lawsuits. Steve could have also been fired which could potentially lead to legal issues of his own on the basis of his firing. Key facts in this situation are that Steve acted unethically and could have caused a world of trouble and legal issues for himself, the company and its customers. Although Steve was able to quickly fix the code that caused the breach, it could still be possible that some customers’ information got into the wrong hands causing legal and hardship issues for those customers. Recommendation Something that I would recommend for this company is the establishment of a Data Breach Response Team. This would likely result in a source that cannot be hacked to protect personal information in the company’s system. Additionally, it would be beneficial for Mountain Top Views to apply a theft protection program that provides protection of personal and sensitive data within the company. These tools will be beneficial to the company, it’s executives and most importantly it’s customers. It is important to have such programs and teams in place so that employees and customers feel safe and secure when inputting personal information into the company’s database. Conclusion Advances in technology are always evolving and changing, especially in the business world. Businesses have gone from taking handwritten job applications, handwritten time cards and other handwritten personal documents to everything being entered electronically. When business was being conducted by handwriting, the chance for a breach in data was significantly lower. Now that a vast majority of companies electronically input their data for customers, employees, partners and new hires it has opened up numerous cyber dangers. Hackers are always working to see what type of breach they can create in order to access the most sensitive information. This is why it is important for companies to have data breach response teams, fraud guard programs and anti theft programs set in place to prevent hackers from getting into a companies database and compromising the information of potentially millions of people. Ethical Test The Golden Rule I chose the Golden Rule which simply states, “Do to others as you want them to gratify you.” This test seems simple but that is not always the case. The advantages of the golden rule are that most people do not want to be wronged or treated badly so they are likely to do right by those around them so that they can get the same in return. Potential shortcomings of this test are that some people do not care about how they are treated by others which could potentially mean that they are more likely to act reckless, careless and unethically. I believe that the test of the golden rule would be beneficial to Mountain Top Views because if they have employees who are willing to treat customers in ways that they would wish to be treated by an establishment then the company would likely run more smoothly. If Steve would have been more inherent of the golden rule, the backlash and questioning from his managers would have been avoided. Steve should have thought about if it had been his information being compromised within in a large corporation. I am sure he would have wanted the executives of that company notified as well as a notification to himself regarding the potential dangers of the breach.