Editor's Page

A tale of two sites

There's an alternative slogan making the rounds for the number-one semiconductor manufacturer: "We're Intel, we do what we want." But even the mighty cannot always get what they want. What Intel's management wants to get rid of, at least within their hallowed corporate computer firewalls, is www.igc.apc.org/faceintel, a Web site started by a dissident group known as FACE Intel, for Former and Current Employees of Intel. Those inside Intel headquarters who want to see what the fuss is about cannot get to the site because the company has blocked Internet access to the site from its own computer systems. Why? Because "it's defamatory," Intel spokeswoman Tracy Koon recently told the Metro, a Silicon Valley weekly newspaper.

But I don't work for Intel. I've seen what FACE Intel has to say. I've clicked back and forth between www.intel.com and the self-styled voice of the resistance. Sure, the upstarts get in the face of their nemesis but why would Intel treat the group's often hyperbolic statements as it does the pornographic Web sites it also blocks? If the contents are so defamatory, why don't the masterminds of Mission College Boulevard spend a nanofraction of company resources to soundly thrash the heretics' claims once and for all? Maybe they don't want to potentially legitimize the complaints of FACE by answering the group's accusations.

Under "Jobs at Intel" at the company's Web site, there is a summary of "Intel Values," which include the following statements: "We strive to listen to all ideas and viewpoints" (under "Risk Taking"), and "We strive to be open and direct" (under "Great Place to Work"). There are negative comments about the company on Intel's own Newsgroup Forums. Most of the groups are product related, including a brand-new forum for Pentium II processors, and there is a fair amount of slagging Intel chips. In the corporate information group, there are also none-too-flattering postings. One comment could have been lifted off FACE's own Weekly Postings section, in which the sender refers to unhappy workers at Intel's DuPont, WA, plant, saying, "Intel is not a 'fun place to work' they (sic) way I hear it."

As for FACE's site, which is now sheltered by the Internet service of the Communications Workers of America after being dropped by other providers, I found that it contained an underwhelming amount of solid factual information about abuses at the microprocessor giant. The group says its primary goal is to "expose and help put an end to Intel's discriminatory and predatory employment practices," but the site only has a smattering of anecdotes shared by people supposedly wronged by the company.

I believe Intel should follow its own stated values and let its employees have open access to opposing viewpoints. I also believe that FACE's accusations sound like sour grapes unless it can back up its serious charges with more documentation. I have a proposal for both sides: Set up hyperlinks to each other's cyberdomains, maybe even establish a shared newsgroup. Let the free-speech forces of the Internet work their magic.

Tom Cheyney

Editor

tom.cheyney@cancom.com

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