To grow quickly and become profitable, many companies have cut ethical corners, broken laws, and even stolen user data. Don’t expect apologies from the founders of these well-known brands or any justice served. Instead, read about the most interesting and unethical hacks used by these business giants.
In this article, we'll cover:
- How Walmart initially paid for an employee’s treatment and then sued to get the money back;
- Why Uber hid their cars from the police;
- How Apple’s products were assembled by underage workers and what happened next;
- And much more. Let’s dive in!
Walmart: suing an employee for medical expenses
Walmart, one of the world’s largest corporations, is valued at $490 billion as of 2024. Their supermarkets are a primary source of everyday goods and groceries for Americans. However, the company has long been known as an "evil empire" due to its disregard for both customers and employees.
One of the most infamous cases involves Walmart employee Deborah Shank.
In 2000, 52-year-old Deborah Shank suffered irreversible brain damage after a collision with a semi-trailer, leaving her confined to a wheelchair. Her husband and three sons were fortunate to receive $700,000 in compensation from the trucking company. After legal fees and other expenses, $417,000 was put into a special Walmart fund to care for Mrs. Shank.
Source: listverse
However, six years later, Walmart sued the Shank family and won $470,000, the amount spent on Deborah’s medical treatment. Walmart had the legal right to this money because Mrs. Shank's employment contract stated in fine print that any compensation received after an accident belonged to Walmart. A federal judge ruled in favor of the company, forcing the Shank family to rely on medical insurance and social security for her 24/7 care.
This is not the only instance of Walmart's inhumane treatment of employees and customers. For example, Walmart once fired an employee with Down syndrome who had worked there since 1999. However, this case ended well when the court ordered Walmart to pay her $125 million.
PayPal: forcing eBay to buy them
PayPal essentially forced eBay to buy their payment system by leeching off and growing within eBay for years:
- PayPal created a bot that made shopping on eBay a breeze;
- This bot insisted on payments only through PayPal.
The payment system grew so large that eBay had no choice but to buy it to avoid losing profits.
Source: cnet
This happened in 2002 when eBay shelled out $1.5 billion for PayPal.
Telegram: not so anonymous... or is It?
When Telegram was launched, it attracted its first users by promising complete anonymity. Users were aware that this wasn't entirely true, as Pavel Durov even went to court with various governments to defend user anonymity.
Source: cyber-ghost
But something went wrong: Telegram has been accused of collecting user data — something all social networks and messengers do — and even leaking it to governments.
Uber: cops don’t ride taxis
Like Walmart, Uber exploited loopholes in employment contracts and often underpaid workers. But they took it further with the Uber Greyball system:
Source: calendar-uk
Uber secretly tracked the geolocation of all users in the background. If someone, likely a police officer, downloaded the Uber app from a police station or government building, the app would not show any Uber cars in the area.
This shadowban technology effectively protected all drivers with unregistered vehicles.
Airbnb: stealing from competitors
Airbnb, a property rental service, grew by exploiting competitors. They created a bot to automatically respond to users on rival real estate site Craigslist.
Source: business insider
To lure customers, Airbnb made fake email accounts and used attractive profile pictures to increase user interest. They even stole account data from users who had previously posted property listings on Craigslist.
Facebook: snooping on chats
A while back, Facebook used their access to the email addresses of all Harvard students to spam everyone with invitations to join Facebook.
One of the biggest scandals for Zuckerberg’s company was "Operation Ghostbusters" in 2016. Facebook intercepted messages from its fast-rising competitor Snapchat to study user behavior.
Source: mushable
Apart from Snapchat, Facebook also took user data from Amazon and YouTube.
LinkedIn: data theft again
LinkedIn has a history of stealing databases — contacts and user information. They were even caught selling this information.
The company was fined $10 million, but only after they took contacts from users' smartphone address books and invited thousands of people to join LinkedIn.
But even after the fine, LinkedIn continued stealing data, just more cautiously and in countries with lax privacy laws. They still steal user data and contacts in India and spam users with ads, much like that persistent affiliate manager who messaged you recently.
OpenAI: not Intentional, but for the greater good
OpenAI, like all companies working with AI, has been stealing and continues to steal data from billions of copyrighted pages.
Source: business-insider
This is a common practice to obtain answers and information for self-training. Images, videos, and texts are rephrased and taken from copyrighted sources. However, who really cares about that? Well, except for the original publishers.
Services and users are actively resisting AI's habit of data theft. According to Originality.ai, more websites worldwide are gradually blocking GPTBot.
Source: originality.ai
However, this doesn't always help, as some AI bots like Perplexity easily bypass these blocks, which is clear from the Wired article.
Apple: child labor in China
At their factories in China, Apple has used child labor, violating both Chinese and American laws. They continue this practice, though they have partially admitted to their wrongdoing.
Most of Apple’s factories are in China, and Apple is formally obliged to comply only with local laws. They took responsibility for 11 cases of underage workers, including accidents on the job, but only because 15-year-old kids were employed.
Source: nupge.ca
Did the company's admission change anything? No. Apple covered it up, although they apologized. The company was lucky that by the time of the investigations, the children had turned 16, making them legally allowed to work under Chinese law.
Conclusion: privacy is a myth, but screw-ups and conspiracies are real
Personal information is no longer personal, and copyright and human rights are often ignored. Business giants exploit every chance to profit from users, competitors, and data. Users are left to stay alert and criticize these corporate sharks.
Speaking of which: which unethical hack from the list do you think is the most ingenious and disgusting at the same time?
