community, consistent with our mission-based approach to managing the ACM operations. But, our lack of dependence on advertising income should not result in our allowing personal bias to guide our day-to-day business decisions.

I believe strongly it would be inappropriate for ACM to become judge and jury, or to legislate morality through what would effectively be discriminatory business practices. There are several reasons I believe this, but the strongest is the slippery slope that would result from such decision making.

If ACM were to refuse to post ads from the NSA on the basis of negative opinions expressed by some members of our community, we would be setting a strong and dangerous precedent— that the opinions of some are more important than the opinions of others, and it is appropriate for ACM to take sides. Once we set this precedent it would be very difficult to break free of and would create a potentially slippery slope for ACM, one that would undoubtedly put our entire mission and position within the global computing community at risk.

For example, if we look at the kinds of information gathering the NSA appears to have engaged in and then consider that other organizations (some government and some for-profit corporations) have from time to time been accused of

It should be up
to members of
our community
to decide for
themselves
whether the
NSA would be
a desirable
employer or
an organization
to boycott.

similar information gathering (albeit on a far smaller scale), would ACM then have a moral obligation to refuse advertising from those employers? Or, if an organization such as Planned Parenthood or Prolife.com wants to advertise for an in-house software developer position, would it be appropriate for ACM to decide to refuse such a paid ad because the activities of these organizations may be personally offensive to some in the community? Similarly, if the

National Rifle Association or the BradyCampaign.org came to ACM to place an ad for a programmer position, would it be appropriate for us to refuse them?

If we choose to take on that role of judge and jury, where do we draw the line at what organizations we can refuse to work with on the basis of personal opinion?

And by going down this path, where does it end and doesn’t this inevitably lead ACM to become an organization that excludes some in the community based on their beliefs and personal opinions rather than including everyone equally regardless of their beliefs and opinions?

As the decision maker for ACM’s advertising program at the present time, I can honestly tell you I do not want that kind of authority or ability to set in motion such a slippery slope. This is why we stay out of the politics, provide forums for opinion, discussion and debate—such as the one taking place in this issue—and leave it for members of the community to decide what content they choose to consume or not consume.

There is no question this will lead some in the community to be offended by certain ads placed on our websites or in our magazines, not because of what is actually contained within those ads, but rather because of personal opinions about the advertisers them-

selves. And, no doubt some will be equally offended by columns or opinion articles published in some of ACM’s publications, but we believe this is normal and part of any legitimate and constructive editorial and journalistic process.

As a result, the only criteria we apply to decisions to refuse or reject advertising is whether the advertisements themselves are inappropriate or offensive in the content submitted to ACM for publication.

Some will disagree with this policy, but we believe it is the right approach for an organization such as ours and helps us to avoid what could be a very slipper y slope in relation to determining which organizations ACM will work with, be they advertisers, subscribers to our various publications, exhibitors at ACM conferences, or sponsors of ACM Awards.

For those who are occasionally offended by what appears on the pages of our publications—be that editorial content, artwork, or advertisements—we do apologize for this and welcome your thoughts and opinions. If you share those with us, as Schmidt and Enghardt have done in this issue, we commit to giving you a forum to express your opinions, provided the manner in which you do so is professional and consistent with our highest editorial standards.

Sincerely,

Scott Delman