Crowd Sourcing and Accountability - How Social Media is Changing Business Ethics

Groupon is a website that taps into the social aspect of sales and marketing.  Once you signup for Groupon, it emails you one heavily discounted offer based on your Geo location. If a certain number of people sign up for the offer, then all members get the Groupon offer. If a minimum isn't reached, then the deal is off.  Lately, the trend has caught on fire as many startups have started to operate on similar models (Kgbdeals, citydeals and the likes).  Groupon has been a runaway success since it was able to tap into the social aspect of web.  


However, recently one of Groupon's deal got sour when users discovered foul play.  Groupon displayed a deal for one hour professional photography session with Dana Dawes, an Atlanta based photographer.  

Midway through the deal, some users noticed that Dana (photographer) was displaying slightly edited versions of photos from a different photographer and claiming as her own.  Slowly and steadily users started to complain about the apparent plagiarism and chided Groupon and the Dana Dawes for misinformation.   This turned so ugly that Groupon had to refund everyone's money and close down the deal.  This incident highlights that in the age of Social Media, businesses are forced to address the rapid facebook sharing, tweeting and digging (digg it).  A small misstep in handling customer perception can quickly turn into an ugly situation.