Business Ethics
In the 20 years of our corporate history, we have already turned down quite a few customers and projects. We also needed to explain quite often why we are not using certain services. On this page, we hereby openly declare the things we do not want to do and why we are not using certain products.
In the light of recent events, we refuse any kind of business connections with
- Russia & Belarus (due to ongoing war & genocide in the Ukraine)
- China (due to support of Russias war as well as Tibet, HongKong, Uyghur genocide, excluding Taiwan)
- India (due to support of Russias war)
No participation in military projects
As a general rule, we do not participate in projects that are funded by or primarily intended for use in military applications. There is an unavoidable grey zone for dual-use components but if we find out that our software would end up as part of weapons systems, we are not going to get into business with you.
No Facebook (no Whatsapp)
We would neither work for Facebook nor do we use any service that is part of the Facebook ecosystem. We are not present on Facebook. We do not pay Facebook for advertising. We do not use Whatsapp to communicate with customers. We do not do business with a company that is treating its own customers as their product.
No Apple
We are not doing business within the Apple lock-in and DRM ecosystem. We do not develop iOS software. We do not buy Apple products (that nobody but Apple can repair). We do not participate in projects involving Siri due to ethical concerns regarding audio-surveillance of private rooms.
No Amazon (no AWS, no Alexa)
We do not participate in any (further) projects involving Amazon proprietary technology. Due to rampant abuse, we also simply drop traffic from many AWS networks on our firewalls. We do not build any (further) products involving Amazon Alexa skills or AVS due to ethical concerns regarding audio-surveillance of private rooms. We do not buy-from or sell-through Amazon due to ethical concerns regarding Amazons abuse of its market dominance.
As little Microsoft as possible (no Azure Cloud, no Skype, no Windows 10)
We are still developing software for the Microsoft Windows platform but we are working on cross-platform support (software running natively under Linux, using Wine or using Reactos) wherever possible. We do not use any Microsoft cloud services. We do not use Skype to communicate with customers. We will not deploy or support Windows 10. We do not participate in projects involving Cortana due to ethical concerns regarding audio-surveillance of private rooms.
As little Google as possible
We do not build Android devices. We do not participate in projects involving Google-Home due to ethical concerns regarding audio-surveillance of private rooms.