Through this week’s Learning Resources, you examined both ethical issues and practices as they relate to the implementation of IT systems. While the hope is that all companies will do their best to maintain ethical business practices, unfortunately, not all of them make that an instrumental component of their operations.

Have you ever heard of an organization that participated in an IT-related unethical practice? Perhaps the company sold personal customer data to a third party without customer consent, or perhaps the organization obtained trade secrets or other proprietary information through the use of spyware. Consider the impact of unethical practices on those close to the organizations that commit them. Then, consider how that impact extends to the surrounding community and to society at large.

For this Discussion, you will identify an article or news story about an unethical practice that is IT-related and analyze its impact on organizations, as well as explain measures that could have been taken to prevent it from happening in the first place.

To prepare for this Discussion:

• Review this week’s Learning Resources.
• Locate an article or news story that describes an unethical practice that is IT-related.
• Review the Academic Writing Expectations for 2000/3000-Level Courses, provided in this week’s Learning Resources.

By Day 3

Post a 150- to 225-word (2- to 3-paragraph) analysis of the impact of ethical issues in information technology that includes the following:

• Provide a description and citation of the article you located.
• What could have been done to prevent the practice from happening?
• How does the unethical practice affect those within or close to the company as well as the community?
• To support your response, be sure to reference at least one properly cited scholarly source.