Blogs Gone Wrong

Assigned for our Investor Relations are case studies (if you are interested in these case studies, feel free to contact me and I would love to send them to you). Coincidentally the first case study was about a controversy that occurred as a result of the CEO of Whole Foods making unmonitored blog posts. CEO John Mackey, had his own blog, in which he was making posts about Whole Foods. At the same time, he was posting under a different username (harodeb, which is his wife's name) speaking very highly of Whole Foods and posting negatively about Wild Oats which Whole Foods was looking to acquire. Here is a look at Mackey's Blog.

Whole Foods was lacking a proper Investor Relations department to monitor the activities of their CEO on the web. Anything posted on the internet is accessible to all those who use the internet.

2 Things to Debate/Learn from:
1. Was Mackey's sock puppeting actions ethical?
2. How did Whole Foods respond?

1. Ethics, a whole IR issue within itself. Does it have to be documented and officially termed unethical in order for it to be considered ethical or not? Who or what is the determinant to whether or not its ethical.

Personally, I feel that it's unethical to post under a disguised username, however I understand the argument that can be made to say that it is ethical. The ethical argument would probably say that as long as the information is coming out, there shouldn't be an issue. The CEO is held to higher standards by the public to only speak in a certain way, and maybe this disguised username is his way to express his freedom of speech

2. Whole Foods' response was to take away Mackey's authority to access his blog. After the situation had come out a little more, Mackey then issued a letter explaining his actions and offered his bloggers the opportunity to post questions and comments of which Mackey gave his response to.