Non disclosure in business.

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Let's say there's some kind of activity you do not support, trophy hunting, for example, but there can be others as well, and if you knew someone you did business with spent money on it, you would take your business elsewhere but since it's not disclosed to you, you unknowingly support something you loathe. Shouldn't you be allowed to know about anything controversial they might be involved in from the start, then decide on what to do?

I understand some specialists are in short supply, so if you want to be treated by certain types of doctors, you might have to grimace and bear it anyway but what about when there's a choice? That way you can custom tailor your business dealings based on your core beliefs and if they support something you strongly endorse, you would find out about that, too, and your money would be going toward something you love.

So why keep stuff secret?

To remain competitive, and thus remain in business. Non-disclosure agreements usually focus on two main areas of knowledge:

1) Business Information. This includes, but is not limited to, information relating to intellectual property, business plans, financial information, products, services, manufacturing processes and know-how, technical information, sources of supply, strategic plans, advertising and marketing plans, customer lists, sales, profits, pricing methods, personnel and business relationships. If your competitors copy your methods, then your advantage in the marketplace is diminished. This results in lower profits from lost revenue, and more employee attrition.

2) Confidential Information. This includes, but is not limited to, a company’s intellectual property information, business information and trade secrets. If only you know the secret blend of eleven herbs and spices that go into your best-selling product, then your product is unique, and people have to come to you to buy it. But if your competitors learn your secret, then they can offer a similar product, and thus reduce or eliminate your customer base. Fewer customers means less revenue. Less revenue means less pay. Less pay means employee attrition.

Not that "employee attrition" means layoffs. It also means employees leaving your employment, taking what they've learn about your company with them, and going to work for a competitor.

Note also that Business Information - details on the day-to-day operation of your business - are also considered Confidential.

The first rule of <company name> is that you don't talk about what goes on inside of <company name>, even if it is not directly related to the business of <company name>.

So you want to find out if a company is involved in something you don't like? Either hire a private investigator or get a job with the company. Anyone who tells you what is going on is risking his or her job.

It is none of the consumer's business what a business (or its staff) choose to do or how they choose to do it unless it is germane to the contract between that business and the consumer in question.

So, you either ask before entering into a contract or investigate if there's any public record showing the company (or its staff) engages in such activities.

If you don't ask, you don't care enough about it. Still, there is an issue of relevancy, so if the questions are too personal, expect the business to show you the door and ask you to leave.

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This makes me think of the moron who did the video against Chik-Fil-A and got fired after people identified who he was and where he worked from a few frames where his face got into the video he posted on YouTube.

Now, this is the ugliness of censorship. Was the guy an ass? Yes. Did he deserve to lose his job over it? No.

He didn't do anything to identify his employer or appear to represent his employer in the video. However, once he was identified, people objecting to his actions brought much pressure against his employer, and THAT created a PR crisis for the employer. They could either defend his right to expression or get rid of the problem. They took the EASIER option. Defending his right to be an ass on his own time risked possible negative impact on the business.

Now, don't tell me this DOESN'T hinder free speech in America. Those who have supportive employers (or push agendas the employer openly embraces) can act with impunity in the public eye. Anyone else has to sit down and shut up about their opinions because if it gets out in the wrong way, they could lose everything.

It's always been this way. The US Constitution restricts the acts of government, not private parties, but with the advent of the Internet and what I'm calling "guerrilla politics" by extremist groups, the only safe thing a person can do once they have a decent job is keep their thoughts and beliefs to themselves.

What somebody does on their own time is none of your business, as customer you are not entitled to it. Do you think people should be entitled to know if somebody is gay because that is something a lot people(ignorant bigots but people none the less) don't support or want to lend their money to?

I disagree. I have the right to know where my money is going. So, if I am fundamentally opposed to some practice, I have a right to know if my money would be going toward that practice before I hand my money over, especially something like trophy hunting of animals, some of which are endangered or threatened. That's a very big deal to a lot of people. I believe everyone has this right to know before they decide to do business. What if there were two businesses, one does this twisted trophy hunting that the proprietor knows a lot of people despise, all the time rationalizing it's for conservation, and keeps it very confidential (all because he knows full well most people hate it and don't want to support it) so all but a few people at the business don't know and they keep quiet about it, but the other business in the same field, a competitor decides they will donate a portion of their profits to wildlife conservation. I have the right to go to the business doing what I agree with because I know my money will support something I agree with. At the very least I would encourage businesses to brag about their charities so people will feel safe knowing their money will support a reputable charity rather than a rationalized, sham mercy killing.

First, once you give your money to someone else, it is no longer your money - it becomes theirs, to do with as they please. So if you buy flowers from that guy on the corner, he can take the money (which is now his), and buy whatever he wants with it, and there is nothing you can do about it!

(This is why I would rather invite a panhandler into a restaurant and buy a meal for him than hand him any cash. I know then that I have fed him, and that he is less likely to end up on a coroner's slab for at least another day.)

Second, if you buy your flowers at a flower shop, are you going to demand to know if those flowers were raised organically by fair-wage labor? Are you going to ask the owner if she has any relatives working for Monsanto? Are you going to require that they prove that no one in the company has ever gone big-game hunting in Africa?

Companies are obliged by law to disclose only hazardous substances and environments, ingredients in their food, and the nutritional values of their food. They are not required by law to disclose the hobbies and interests of their employees, and employees are not required by law to disclose much more than work history, education, name, SSN, and other such data as required by law.

So, unless a law is passed that requires everyone (including you) to surrender his or her right to privacy to any stranger buying a pack of cigarettes, you are unlikely to get your way.

There is nothing I can do about it that's why I want to know more about the proprietor before I hand my money over in the first place

Then the proprietor should also have the right to enquire into your personal life before he hands over his goods.

How would I use his goods to support something like trophy hunting when I don't partake in it?

How would he know that you are not going to use his goods for something illegal, immoral, or unethical?

If you want the right priviledge of prying into his personal life before purchasing his goods, then he should be granted the same right priviledge of prying into your personal life before selling his goods to you.

It's only fair and equal treatment, after all.

Perhaps he's a trophy hunter and doesn't want you to use the laptop you're buying from him in order to disparage trophy hunting and advocate its banning. Or, taking a slightly different tack, you're applying for a job, and the proprietor of the business you're applying to doesn't want the money he's dispersing as payroll to subsidize political activism he disagrees with; do you think he has the right to demand that you disclose all of your potentially controversial opinions as a condition of hiring you?

Excellent point!

There was an animal shelter nearby, where one of the volunteers wouldn't let an animal be adopted unless that adoptor first signed an agreement to treat the animal's illnesses only with homeopathic "medicine", and feed it only GMO-free food, or else the pet would be confiscated and returned to the shelter.

Maybe computer dealers should make customers sign an agreement to not use the computer to disparage the dealers' personal interests (or the computer will be confiscated). Maybe potential employers should require potential employees to reveal all of their online identities and passwords before they will even grant an interview.

Sort of a silly question. They are under no obligation to disclose most of this sort of thing.

I do, though, support the idea that if a business intends to refuse service to homosexuals, they should have to post a clear notice on the outside of their place of business, near the main entrance. Just like "whites only" and "no irish" signs of yore.

Take Chick-Fil-A. It's run by fundies of the kind i find repugnant. Their CEO makes a point of trying to limit the rights of people who aren't like him.

You can be gay and work there, and they don't treat you any different. You can be gay and be their customer and they don't treat you any different. But the big boss does throw his weight behind gay people getting treated different. And i sort of avoid giving them any of my money. It helps that i think their food mostly sucks.

I'll never set foot in a Hobby Lobby again. This will deprive them of the entire dollars i might spend when my supply of small ziplock baggies runs out. i use these to store small parts when i am working on intricate projects that extend more than one day. I have no interest in filling my house with artsy fartsy doohickeys so i have no other reason to be there.

Some things you should know.

Coffee, Tea, Chocolate depend on child labor living in the fields for the harvest.

There is no shelter, if they get fed they are charged for it, and the water supply may be a ditch.

As crops have to be picked as they ripen and before they go bad, the work day is dawn to dusk every day, till the last is picked. Their pay is withheld until the last is picked, and $1 a day is their pay.

Clothing sold in America is produced in sweat shops, where the hours are long and the pay is low. Fires and building collapse are common.

Smart Phones called for nets around the building to keep workers from suicide. The objection was it was on company property, and there was an expense of cleanup.

For long hours and hard work the Chinese make $3 a day. Mexicans make $5. Vietnam, Thailand, $2.

A white guy took to picking fruit in America, working hard he was bringing in $3 an hour. Mexicans started dumping fruit in his bins so he would not fall behind and get fired. After a week of the hardest work of his life, he could keep up and made $5 an hour. It was dawn to dusk, seven days a week, till the crop was in.

Jobs that were sent off shore and paid a living wage here, often Union, with benefits, are being done by near slave labor.

The carpet industry of India does run on child slave labor. A chain around their ankle locks them to the loom.
They are sold here as Afghan Carpets. Afghan carpets are also made by child labor. They are expensive, because a year of a child's life went into making one.

All of our Free Trade Agreements, including Obama's new ones support local labor laws. The latest seem to say a Government can be sued for raising wages or changing working conditions. They are called, Anti-Competitive Restrictions. They are locking in current working conditions.

The richest 1/10 of 1% is gaining all the profit, and Market Control, sweat shop goods cost more than when they were made here by Union Labor.

The rich have bought our government, there is an election coming, it may be the last chance to preserve freedom for ourselves, our children, and the world.

What's your problem with hunting where you all the sudden find yourself so wrapped around the axle over it? Do you know the difference between hunting and poaching?

As far as hiring goes, it might happen more than you think...discrimination based on this type of thing. You have to be a right "fit" for the company but really it means share the company's values. If someone opposes trophy hunting, and they find out they hired a trophy hunter after the fact, they might not want to keep that person as an employee. Sure it's discrimination, but it happens.
As for buying stuff, the competition is so fierce, the last thing business owners want to do is alienate customers so like the old saying goes, money talks. If you are willing to hand over the money, they can be very forgiving because it is your money going to them and that's the bottom line in business otherwise, there's no point. So them turning away anyone's dollars, except in the case of the rare wedding caterer or planner over same sex marriage, wouldn't be in their best interest and they wouldn't do it. The only example I have heard is in the case of same sex marriage and these are religious fanatics who are doing this although I personally would never turn away anyone over same sex marriage. I would go above and beyond my duty to cater or plan their wedding because I do not have a problem with this or plural marriage, either.
It's the free market at work. Just because one person hates hunting and doesn't want to support it doesn't mean the next will. And, it's also learning about marketing tools. You find people are attracted for this or that reason. Nowadays, businesses try to be as bland as they can and they hide stuff so they can make the highest profit possible but later, when stuff like this happens, it's such a blow to customers and they feel betrayed and deceived. Palmer even admitted he never talked about trophy hunting at work because it upset people and what really means is, if I talk about it at work, people will take their money to the dentist down the street that doesn't engage in this grisly pastime but that should be their right. They should be allowed to know about it.

Furthermore, Americans need to accept the fact these lions are on the brink of extinction! Just look at the numbers if you don't believe me! Down from roughly 200,000 thirty years ago to under 32,000 now. Their numbers keep declining which means, duh, they are going to die out. Would anyone with any conscience whatsoever hunt a dying species!?Hunters should be mortified at the idea. You don't hunt a species on the decline. Nothing you can say about hunting excuses this type of behavior. It's a species that's clearly dying out and these jack asses are going over there killing them each year for what? A trophy. There are other ways to support conservation so don't give me the bs that it has to happen to save the species because that's a fallacy and a lie if there ever was one. You don't have to hunt them to save them and if you really cared about them, you would just give these people the $55,000 no strings attached.