It’s been a long year, especially for technology. Tech companies, big and small, found themselves in hot water for scandals ranging from political issues, sexual harassment cases and everything in between.
We surveyed 600 people, who identified themselves as frequent followers of tech industry news, to give us the ranking for the 5 biggest scandals of 2017.
Despite this year’s scandals, consumer trust for top companies is surprisingly high.
Tech Industry Vs. Trump’s Immigration Ban
Tech leaders condemn Trump’s immigration ban amidst mass protest.
#DeleteUber: Kalanick steps down from Trump’s advisory board
Uber CEO, Travis Kalanick, steps down from Trump’s advisory council after public outcry and boycott, urging people to delete the Uber app.
Female Engineer Blows the Whistle on Sexual Harassment at Uber
Former Uber engineer, Susan Fowler, speaks out about institutional sexual harassment at Uber via a viral blog post.
Trump-supporting Oculus founder leaves Facebook
Palmer Luckey leaves Facebook six months after it was discovered he secretly funded a pro-Trump campaign.
Unroll.me Faces Backlash After Selling Data to Uber
Unroll.me, a free service to unsubscribe to email lists, was discovered to be selling information about the contents of its user’s email inboxes to companies like Uber.
Marissa Mayers Steps Down from Yahoo after Verizon Acquisition
Marissa Mayers, CEO of Yahoo, steps down after the company's acquisition by Verizon.
Google Engineer Sends Sexist Memo
Google engineer, James Damore, sends a company memo claiming that women are not fit to work in technology. He was fired for “advancing harmful gender stereotypes”.
Samsung Chief Found Guilty of Corruption
A South Korean court found Lee Jae-yong, the de facto chief of Samsung, guilty of bribery and other corruption charges.
Equifax Announces Data Breach
Equifax, one of the three major credit bureaus, announced that personal information of nearly 146 million Americans was compromised.
Sexual Harassment Rallying Cry Hits Silicon Valley
Journalist Quinn Norton published a Medium post detailing an instance in the "early 2010s" when she said technology pundit Robert Scoble groped her at a technology conference.
Facebook, Twitter and Google Testify Before Congress About Election Meddling
Executives from Facebook, Twitter and Google testify before Congress about the foreign nationals’ use of social media to interfere in the 2016 election.
Uber Discloses Massive 2016 Data Breach
Uber discloses hackers stole 57 million driver and rider accounts and the company kept the data breach secret for more than a year after paying a $100,000 ransom.
Methodology
We survey 600 Americans, who identified themselves as frequent followers of tech industry news, via the survey platform Pollfish about the tech scandals of 2017. The survey was conducted on November 29, 2017.
Brionna is on a roller coaster that only goes up. You can follow her on twitter @BrionnaLewis.
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