IBM Sued By Shareholders For Cooperating With The NSA... Decimating Sales In China
from the economic-impact-of-nsa-spying dept
Ever since the Snowden leaks began, we've been talking about how the harm for the US economy -- and especially the tech industry -- was going to be massive (much more damaging than anything the NSA might possibly prevent with its spying). We've already seen Cisco attribute poor earnings to the Snowden revelations, and now a large IBM shareholder is suing IBM, claiming that its relationship with the NSA resulted in the company's disappointing third quarter results:The plaintiff in the complaint, Louisiana Sheriffs' Pension & Relief Fund, said this threatened IBM hardware sales in China, particularly given a program known as Prism that let the NSA spy on that country through technology companies such as IBM.As for the legal basis for the lawsuit, the pension fund is arguing that IBM should have revealed the potential of this kind of information coming public as a "risk factor." Chances are this lawsuit will go nowhere, but it does highlight, yet again, just how damaging the NSA's activities can be on the US. When compared to how little the NSA has actually accomplished, according to various folks in Congress who have been briefed, it certainly seems like the NSA is doing a lot more harm than good. Hopefully this leads other companies to be much stronger in pushing back on the NSA's demands, knowing that it can significantly harm their business prospects outside of the US.
The Baton Rouge pension fund said the revelation of Prism and related disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden caused Chinese businesses and China's government to abruptly cut ties with the world's largest technology services provider.
It said this led IBM on October 16 to post disappointing third-quarter results, including drops in China of 22 percent in sales and 40 percent in hardware sales.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: china, lawsuits, nsa, shareholders
Companies: ibm
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
People worldwide, not just in the US are unhappy with all these revaluations and it will result in changes not beneficial to the US.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Decimating or Annihilating?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Decimating or Annihilating?
No, I like most of the world, recognize the modern meaning of the word, and don't stick lamely by the historical one.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/decimate
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/decimating
htt p://dictionary.reference.com/browse/decimate
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Decimating or Annihilating?
I'll just call this literally ironic and now we have the hat-trick of sadly misused words.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Decimating or Annihilating?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The Federal Reserve undermining the country is far bigger.
But Mike does re-write the original story with the exact same take! Wow, it's like lighting a candle in the full noon sun! Yet another shining example of his easily imitatable style of keeping up with last week.
The real if not only purpose of central banks is to get gov'ts so deep into phony debt that it can be used as excuse to enslave the people.
12:01:40[n-2-4]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The Federal Reserve undermining the country is far bigger.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: The Federal Reserve undermining the country is far bigger.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Sales Drop
> and 40% in hardware sales.
Wow, that's a lot more than just a decimation in sales!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Many American's don't seem to understand that there's a world outside their borders (unless there's a war to keep them entertained... ). Will this begin to wake them up?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bye Bye NSA
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Bye Bye NSA
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Pretty much guaranteed that de-briefing was tried first.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"This is even more reason to blame Snowden. Look what he's done, if we had been allowed just keep doing what we were doing clandestinely, all would be right with the world."
Now we can say that we predicted it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
you got to laugh at this one bigtime ! Law Enforcement who would be the ones to break down your door are complaining but before their money felt threatened they said nothing at all.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]