Realistically, why would the answer be no? We've not established thoroughly that programmers have a duty to refuse to commit crimes or at least carry out morally bankrupt plans, but I don't think that people will or should be less critical when the hammer comes down. Just look toward the VW case. Is it worth risking your job to do the right thing?

In my opinion, the answer is never no. I speak as someone who has actually refused to implement functionality on the basis of ethics before.

People have as much morality as they can afford.

I think that, as a coworker of mine has suggested, the situation will improve as programming matures as a field of work. Something like a professional's association could work wonders if well executed. I'm not looking forward to all of the associated crap, but you win some, you lose some.

There is too much growth and change in the industry at the moment. One might argue that growth and change are inherent to ICT, but maybe that's just us hyping our own field.

In any case, the market is moving way to fast for professional licensing. Both when it comes to total demand of coders, and when it comes to the churn in required knowledge. A licensed coder that thinks jQuery is the best way to write a web-app is not going to be hired over an unlicensed coder with experience in angular/react.

Great way of putting it.

Yes, all devs should stand up to their moral beliefs. Web analytics isn't necessarily evil, but something like this article is pointing is definitely coming pretty close.

Coming pretty close? They have definitely crossed a lot of lines at that point. They give your personal information, your name, email and even phone number, just because you have visited some site? I don’t have a problem if a websites checks how many times I log in, and do stuff. That is reasonable to accept. Tracking me across multiple different sites is morally questionable but giving you my freaking private information to anyone who asks and pays even though I have never agreed to that is just morally wrong. And that comes from my carrier whom I expect to take care of my personal information, because they have complete control over my internet and can even see what I’m doing on the internet (yes even encrypted traffic can tell you a lot about someone). It’s not like I really have a choice which Carrier to use because there are so few out there and each one of them is a different kind of shady.

Evil is a pretty strong word. I just wasn't sure if this is evil or just dishonest and super super shitty.

What the telcos are doing here is crossing the line by a mile. A case can be made for anonymized bulk analytics. Stalking individual users like this is totally unacceptable. The executives who came up with this and the engineers who implemented this are absolutely in the wrong, and should be held responsible.

Evil is a pretty strong word. I just wasn't sure if this is evil or just dishonest and super super shitty. They've definitely crossed the acceptability line.

After saying it once in the thread, it is not useful to repeat a comment one minute later in a new post. I see that you added a sentence, but this does not suddenly make the previous word-for-word reiteration a new idea.

I agree that it clutters the thread, but the flip side is that many people don't come back to the full thread and only view replies.

Yes.

Anyone with a sabot to throw, and a brain at this point.

What’s a sabot?

An adaptor fitting, intended for kinetic energy penetrators which occupy a smaller diameter caliber than the barrel of the ballistic weapon they are being fired from.

Used in modern anti-tank rounds.

The DSAT in the name of these rounds stands for

Discarding

Sabot

Anti

Tank

A French wooden shoe.