{"id":109,"date":"2011-09-03T08:09:03","date_gmt":"2011-09-03T08:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ursmueller.de\/?p=109"},"modified":"2019-04-03T23:57:08","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T21:57:08","slug":"offering-services-that-are-misused","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urs-mueller.com\/de\/offering-services-that-are-misused","title":{"rendered":"Offering services \u2013 that are \u201cmisused\u201d?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I was cycling through Berlin when I made an interesting observation:<\/p>\n

In two weeks there will be elections for the state and city of Berlin. Only a few major parties are likely to pass the 5% threshold that is set by German election laws. (Any party that collects less than 5% will not make it into the parliament.) But in addition to the 5 main parties there are 13 other parties competing in Berlin. One of them is a far right wing party called \u201cDie Freiheit\u201d (\u201cThe freedom\u201d). They are a party that is at the very far end of the political spectrum and intentionally provoking and polarizing, especially with anti-Islam, anti-foreigner and Euro-skeptic propaganda.<\/p>\n

Yesterday they were driving through the streets with trucks covered with banners and their slogans, e.g.: \u201cKick the overly indebted countries out of the Euro\u201d, \u201cStop islamistic parallel societies\u201d (a poster with a German flag in the background in which you can find the Turkish symbol of the moon and the star in the red part of the German flag), or \u201cZero tolerance for criminals\u201d.<\/p>\n

Non of this would be a topic for a business ethics blog. But while the big, established and rich parties usually buy (or lease) entire buses and paint them, the party \u201cDie Freiheit\u201d obviously decided to rent trucks. And while they were driving around the city everybody could simultaneously see the party banners \u2014 AND the name of the rental company: \u201cLEX Autovermietung<\/a>\u201d (i.e. \u201cLEX car rental\u201d).<\/p>\n

Accidentally, I was on my way to a (different) car rental company. And so I was immediately thinking: Would I rent a truck from a company that also rents cars to political parties that subsequently use the trucks for political advertisement (way outside of the the main-stream political spectrum)? The party is legal and can run for the election. (According to German law there is a [very complex and difficult] process to prohibit political parties if they openly reject the constitution; which \u201cDie Freiheit\u201d doesn\u2019t.) But aren\u2019t their political objectives harmful to the friendly coexistence within the city? Is it ok to rent trucks to them?<\/p>\n

On the other hand \u2013 if the car rental company was rejecting \u201cDie Freiheit\u201d, should they also reject other parties? Which ones? All? All except for those that are represented in the parliament? All except the one supported by the owner of the company? How about the employees? And if the company decided to prohibit the rental of trucks to \u201cDie Freiheit\u201d: How should they enforce this?<\/p>\n

Is there any responsibility of the rental company with respect to their customers\u2019 usage of their trucks? For questions like this many quote the legendary knife producing company and its alleged position of not being responsible if somebody uses their knife to kill someone. Is this true for the car rental company? Are they not responsible for the usage of their cars \u2013 especially as long as the usage is legal?<\/p>\n

These were some of my questions while cycling to the rental company. And as I was preparing to rent a car myself, I was imagining that the party might have fixed the posters on the trucks while still on the premises of the rental company.<\/p>\n

I have to confess: implicitly and subconsciously I was inferring that the rental company supported the party and their political agenda.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, I decided to use this situation to blog a few questions on a companies responsibility vis-\u00e0-vis the usage of its products \/ services by the customers. I did a bit of research on the rental company and found an interesting website and coincidence:<\/p>\n

\u201cPolitically Incorrect\u201d is a right wing blog in Germany. In November 2009 they reported about a demonstration of Muslims in the German city of Dresden<\/a> that was (amongst others) demanding the closure of the website \u201cPolitically Incorrect\u201d.<\/p>\n

Interestingly most of the users \/ supporters of \u201cPolitically Incorrect\u201d are anti-Muslim, and the webpage makes advertisement for the party \u201cDie Freiheit\u201d. But what do we find in this report about the \u201cMuslim demonstration\u201d? A picture of some people speaking while standing on the cargo area of a truck \u2013 rented from the very same rental car company \u2013 \u201cLEX Autovermietung\u201d!! Not as a big surprise a user called \u201cRudi Ratlos\u201d leaves a comment (comment 218) stating that the LEX rental car company will be added to his personal boycott list (\u201cLEX-Autovermietung kommt auf meine Boykottliste.\u201d).<\/p>\n

So, ironically LEX-Autovermietung seems to be serving two seemingly opposing camps of the political spectrum. What a nice lesson in neutrality and independence of a company\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I was cycling through Berlin when I made an interesting observation: In two weeks there will be elections for the state and city of Berlin. Only a few major parties are likely to pass the 5% threshold that is set by German election laws. (Any party that collects less than 5% will not make … <\/p>\n

\u201eOffering services \u2013 that are \u201cmisused\u201d?\u201c<\/span> weiterlesen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,23,46],"tags":[9,47,48,49],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-ethics","category-corporate-responsibility","category-germany","category-politics","tag-business-ethics","tag-car-rental","tag-lex-autovermietung","tag-product-use"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.0","language":"de","enabled_languages":["en","de"],"languages":{"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"de":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"yoast_head":"\nOffering services \u2013 that are \u201cmisused\u201d? - Urs M\u00fcller<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/urs-mueller.com\/offering-services-that-are-misused\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"de_DE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Offering services \u2013 that are \u201cmisused\u201d? 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