This morning, I happened upon a clever web site – Ethos-Water.com. That’s an awfully close match to the web site for Ethos Water – just a dash of difference.
Ethos Water is a business that was recently acquired by Starbucks. It sells bottles of water inside Starbucks, and gives a nickel for each bottle to programs to provide clean water for children (but not adults?) to drink.
The Ethos Water site with the dash between the words is an independent web site questioning the ethics of Starbucks and its Ethos Water program.
The Ethos-Water skeptics point out that Ethos Water sells a bottle of water for $1.80, giving 5 cents to the charitable cause. It is possible, the skeptics point out, to buy a bottle of water for just 15 cents per bottle at stores like Costco. $1.80 minus 15 cents equals $1.65 saved per bottle bought at Costco instead of Starbucks. Subtract the nickel that Ethos Water gives to its charitable cause, and you still have a $1.60 difference for every bottle of water that a person could donate to the same charitable cause.
Ethical question #1: Is it a fair ethical criticism that Ethos Water is making a huge profit and donating only a small portion to a charity, yet marketing its water as a more ethical choice? Is it fair to compare Ethos Water to the money people could save through bulk purchase of bottled water, with the assumption that the savings would go to charity?
Ethical question #2: Is it ethical for the people behind Ethos-Water.com to create a web site that looks almsot exactly like the real Ethos Water web site, and to do so in order to criticize Ethos Water?
I tried to visit the ethos-water.com site… it seems to have been overtaken. It now automatically reroutes you to one of ethos’ partner aiding companies’ site. What exactly are they trying to silence or cover up?