NEWS SUMMARY - 12/11-12/18

News Highlights:

• Viral marketing seems to be a new area in which companies can have fiascos. In fact, this week I’ve seen a new term: a “flog” is shorthand for a “fake blog.” This is being used to describe corporate PR masquerading as unaffiliated content, and people are not reacting well to it. Last week’s News Brief covered YouTube’s cigarette videos and Wal-Mart’s fake-blog controversy. This week, Sony was also called out for its less-than-transparent hip-hop blog, alliwantforxmasisapsp.com. (See “Business Blogging Lesson Still Not Learned”)
• Consumer-driven CSR continues to gain ground, as alonovo.com transforms Its cause-based "social values shopping program" for 2007.
• Lots of regulatory news this week, in several countries:

1. Australia’ Corporations and Markets Advisory Committee decided to leave its Corporation Act unchanged, rejecting proposals to force companies to further incorporate the interests of a broad range of stakeholders. Commentators say that the decision may be made for now, but the debate has only begun.
   
2. SocialFunds.com ran an interview with Ambassador Elisabeth Dahlin explores how the Swedish government facilitates corporate responsibility.
3. U.S. officials participated in conference on CSR inBrazil; but the Justice Department abandoned some of the tough tactics it used to fight corporate crime in the post-Enron era.
4. Starting in 2007, we can expect the Chinese government to start buying green as new "green procurement" policies are implemented for both central and provincial governments.