Consumers are calling for a boycott of telecom equipment makers Nokia and Siemens after the Wall Street Journal reported that the companies’ joint networking firm sold sophisticated internet surveillance equipment to Iran — a story that the company says is false.Despite the denial, boycotters have written Nokia saying they’ve destroyed their Nokia phones, and are telling friends and family to avoid Nokia products until the company “can make the right ethical choices.”
According to the Journal, a system installed in Iran by Nokia Siemens Networks — a Finland-based joint venture between Nokia and Seimens — provides Iranian authorities with the ability to conduct deep-packet inspection of online communications to monitor the contents and track the source of e-mail, VoIP calls, and posts to social networking sites such as Twitter, MySpace and Facebook. The newspaper also said authorities had the ability to alter content as it intercepted the traffic from a state-owned internet choke point.
Will have to delve into this more. But it brings up a interesting phenomenon. Individuals as using the power of the purse, by not buying or not using products from a company based on their relationships with other entities. It may very well be the Achilles heel of the multinational corporation. With the world becoming more and more interconnected, the ability of persons to act locally for global impact. There are not many Corporations that can afford 1-2 quarters of lost revenue.
The boycott petition is here: http://www.NokiaNo.com or campaigns.aicongress.org/nokia