Brokerblogger

Ethanol Lobbying Deception? - Brokerblogger

ADM is having its ethanol lobbying efforts questioned by Public Citizen (Ralph Nader) as reported in "Ethanol Lobbying Disclosures Questioned".  The article caught my attention as I just learned how much Ethanol Fuel can help the U.S. and the world.  I admit to a certain amount of ignorance and apathy about the subject until I wrote "Greenmagination vs. Oil Addiction".  This photo is of corn (maize), but "It (ethanol) is readily obtained from the sugar or starch in crops such as maize, miscanthus and sugarcane."

So, ADM may or may not be guilty of lack of complete disclosure in its lobbying efforts, but that article on ConsumerAffairs.com raises the question of business ethics and loopholes in the law.  Does the end justify the means when ADM can help with the U.S. addiction to oil, but may be setting a bad example when it comes to "risk vs. reward"?  That article says: "If this is the case, such third-party lobbying exposes serious flaws in the Lobbying Disclosure Act, as it easily allows companies to mask entirely their expenditures to influence the legislative and regulatory process."

Let's look at what the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics has to say.

Greenmagination vs. Oil Addiction - Brokerblogger

Jeff Foxworthy says "You might be a redneck, if you mow your lawn and find a car."  Well, this photo (click to enlarge) isn't just tall grass, but Miscanthus.  It may be the key to defeating the oil funded terrorists and Global Warming, keeping the USA v. China as the world's economic leader, and greatly improving Agriculture's economic role by returning to God's Green Earth.

First let me explain why I'm posting on this subject.  Back in 7/05, I started out by trying to help the Search Marketing Industry grow.  On 7/21/06, Peter Kim (senior analyst at Forrester Research) was kind enough to respond to my comment on "Forrester's Marketing Blog".  He said "But new (search marketing) agencies will have to learn some old tricks, too - building a compelling brand is different than trying to reverse engineer a search algorithm."  While it is true that "Black Hat SEO" uses mostly algo reverse engineering, there is a whole lot more to SEO that the Search Maketing Industry's bad/misleading reputation sometimes precludes. 

Bad/misleading reputations are hard to shake, and some SEO, youthful self-interests ignore the reality of how to help the entire industry through self-policing.  Peter Kim's comment proved to me that still, nothing had changed much in that regard.  I'm glad I changed my focus in 4/06 with "From Search Marketing's Reputation to Deceptive Websites ".  While "Deceptive & Misleading Websites Steal Time = Money ", and I believe that there is a major problem with "Deceptive Websites' Privacy Policies & Terms of Service" " (since they lack clear, conspicuous, complete, and comprehendable disclosure), something happened in 7/06 to make me change my focus again with this Brokerblogger.com blog.  Here's how it happened.

Deceptive Websites' Privacy Policies & Terms of Service - Brokerblogger

While Google collects more personal information than any single website, most of it is search history.  Kevin Bankston, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said in "Google balances privacy, reach",  "Your search history shows your associations, beliefs, perhaps your medical problems. The things you Google for define you,.." 

Yet, I'm more concerned now with online sellers having a Privacy Policy and TOS that are so lengthy and confusing that most people don't take the time to read them.  If they did, they still wouldn't be sure how to interpret them.  These things are supposed to build TRUST, when in many cases they are designed to be confusing, deceptive, and ambiguous "SMALL PRINT".  In fact, I think point number 8 of "Ten Things You Need to Know About Reducing Unwanted E-mail" is right on target.  Here is what is says.