Hello new iPhone, goodbye ethics

Network World - If you leave your cell phone on a restaurant table, do I have the right to examine it and publish the details of your life? Of course not. If I did such a thing you'd probably set a lawyer on me and attempt to sue the bejeezus out of me. And rightly so; your private business should remain just that -- private.

Now, let's say you're famous. Perhaps you're Brad Pitt. Does the fact that people are really, really interested in you, make publishing your private business any more justifiable? I'm guessing that you're with me so far and that's a big "no" as well.

Sure, if some kind of unlawful act was involved ("Mr. and Mrs. Smith" might qualify) then providing the world with evidence to get the wheels of justice rolling would be morally defensible, but to just expose the private details of someone's life because you can and because others have some kind of obsessive interest is simply and obviously unethical.

So, when a company leaves one of their cell phones lying around, does that give you the right to dissect it and blab about it to the world? No. Does the fact it's a company and not a real person lower the bar? Absolutely not.

So when the technology blog Gizmodo got its sweaty hands on an early prototype of an Apple iPhone due for release later this year, why did it think it was OK to examine it, take it apart, and tell the world what it found?

In case you missed the brouhaha, here's the story: On March 18, an Apple employee (now, quite possibly, an ex-employee) named Gray Powell, accidentally left a prototype of the next version of the iPhone in a German beer garden in Redwood City, Calif., while celebrating his birthday.

The phone was found by Brian Hogan who claims he tried to return it to Apple.

Apparently Hogan couldn't find anyone at Apple who was interested and so he wound up "giving" the device to Jason Chen, an editor at the technology blog Gizmodo. I write "giving" because it was in exchange for $5,000 for "exclusivity" (apparently Gizmodo was the only publication willing to bite).

Chen closely examined the iPhone, figured out what was different and what was new, and then published a detailed analysis of what he'd found on Gizmodo. And when he did that, with the push of a button, Chen probably screwed up the lives of any number of Apple employees and caused hundreds or thousands of people to put off buying an iPhone until the new version is released.